PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING
Nectar - April © 2009 TR
INTRODUCTION
Visualise, if you will, an audience-filled theatre. House lights dim, and all noise recedes to an anticipated, whispered rustling of clothing, handbags and programs. A deeper quiet descends. Spotlight.
An actress enters, commanding centre-stage. Resting on the fingers of both hands she proudly bears a jewelled, silver box. Eloquently introducing us to the box, the actress describes it's textures, it's dimensions until we are guided now, to see it there, so well-lit, so shiny and distinct. Her playfully insightful descriptions of the box are witty, scintillating, and within the talented scope of her performance, she reveals the very depths of this box's soul to us. Effortlessly now, we recognise that the box is exactly what we are being directed to see, and we find congruence in both the performed presentation of a prized object, and in our own abilty to comprehend exciting new concepts surrounding the box. We can only imagine how it would feel in our own fingers...
As we carefully process our impressions, positioning the memories of the dynamic new-box-performance deep within our minds, a new and different actor emerges from a shadowy zone upstage, shuffling out of an area we hadn't noticed until now. Surprisingly, and gradually, we become aware that this actor has not only arrived from somewhere previously hidden, (from some disquieting depth of darkness upon that mysterious stage), but by his very posture and his slow motion of progress, his arrival and especially his purpose is made more obscure, and we are confused now, confronted, bothered by the muted stage-lighting in which he is attempting to perform his part.
"He must be less important than the first performer."
Muttering and ambling around the stage upon his restless limbs, words and gestures fluttering, his hands are hidden from our eyes, until suddenly we know, inexplicably that he is surely concealing from us the very item that we are now quite ready to see.
"Isn't he obligated to show it to us?"
His monologue is vague, and somewhat disconcerting as he rambles in abstracted, distant and distracting ideas, all the while furtively moving some shadowy object around inside his coat-pocket, only to palm it rapidly into the other hand, that now lingers, drifting behind his back and well out of sight. If you look around now, you will see that all our necks are straining as we awkwardly stretch our bodies to be higher up in our seats.
"What is that thing?"
You can sense it now, our slow-dawning annoyance at the sudden realisation we have become his captive toys. Instinctively charged, we are utterly entranced, determined trackers on the scent. Enthralled by even the slightest shift in his posture, we lean forward, engaged, driven by a strangely physical hunger to discover the identity and the very nature of a valuable object that he has not yet, even once, alluded to holding in his hands...
STUDIO PRACTICE AS SOCIAL ACTION - PHILOSOPHICAL EXTRAPOLATIONS
Any attempt to define philosophical components to my own methods of practice-led teaching must first be qualified by establishing that my teaching is delivered in creative environments, to a wide variety of variously aged students. This systemic diversity enables a versatile methodological flexibility. Why do I teach?
Fundamentally for evolution's sake. In simple terms, I consider teaching to be a natural consequence of living. We inherit an infinite number of conceptual methods for our survival, and in turn, we hand on the very same abstracted toolkit to our young. Instructing others, for some of us, creates mesmerising enrichment in the connections that occur when we are learning and teaching together.
Elegant teaching, for me, is realised in that precise moment of recognition when I witness a curious mind grasp an idea as it's own, and consequently grow. This seemingly effortless imbibing of an idea that now flowers in an organic equation of strategically-equipped questioning, and the ensuing, self-initiated search is truly exhilarating to me. I know that my job has simply been to engage the natural curiosity of the questing mind long enough for it to stimulate and motivate itself along a path of self-directed, well-resourced research. Firstly, I support the idea that all learning success is a natural consequence of desire. To effectively harness the volatile and creative energy of desire in students, and assist them in developing their own initiated task of inquiry, is in essence, the fuelling of a small-scaled, internal nuclear fusion, that when carefully tended, can create a sustained state of self-motivation and progressive forward motion in learning.
Visualise, if you will, an audience-filled theatre. House lights dim, and all noise recedes to an anticipated, whispered rustling of clothing, handbags and programs. A deeper quiet descends. Spotlight.
An actress enters, commanding centre-stage. Resting on the fingers of both hands she proudly bears a jewelled, silver box. Eloquently introducing us to the box, the actress describes it's textures, it's dimensions until we are guided now, to see it there, so well-lit, so shiny and distinct. Her playfully insightful descriptions of the box are witty, scintillating, and within the talented scope of her performance, she reveals the very depths of this box's soul to us. Effortlessly now, we recognise that the box is exactly what we are being directed to see, and we find congruence in both the performed presentation of a prized object, and in our own abilty to comprehend exciting new concepts surrounding the box. We can only imagine how it would feel in our own fingers...
As we carefully process our impressions, positioning the memories of the dynamic new-box-performance deep within our minds, a new and different actor emerges from a shadowy zone upstage, shuffling out of an area we hadn't noticed until now. Surprisingly, and gradually, we become aware that this actor has not only arrived from somewhere previously hidden, (from some disquieting depth of darkness upon that mysterious stage), but by his very posture and his slow motion of progress, his arrival and especially his purpose is made more obscure, and we are confused now, confronted, bothered by the muted stage-lighting in which he is attempting to perform his part.
"He must be less important than the first performer."
Muttering and ambling around the stage upon his restless limbs, words and gestures fluttering, his hands are hidden from our eyes, until suddenly we know, inexplicably that he is surely concealing from us the very item that we are now quite ready to see.
"Isn't he obligated to show it to us?"
His monologue is vague, and somewhat disconcerting as he rambles in abstracted, distant and distracting ideas, all the while furtively moving some shadowy object around inside his coat-pocket, only to palm it rapidly into the other hand, that now lingers, drifting behind his back and well out of sight. If you look around now, you will see that all our necks are straining as we awkwardly stretch our bodies to be higher up in our seats.
"What is that thing?"
You can sense it now, our slow-dawning annoyance at the sudden realisation we have become his captive toys. Instinctively charged, we are utterly entranced, determined trackers on the scent. Enthralled by even the slightest shift in his posture, we lean forward, engaged, driven by a strangely physical hunger to discover the identity and the very nature of a valuable object that he has not yet, even once, alluded to holding in his hands...
STUDIO PRACTICE AS SOCIAL ACTION - PHILOSOPHICAL EXTRAPOLATIONS
Any attempt to define philosophical components to my own methods of practice-led teaching must first be qualified by establishing that my teaching is delivered in creative environments, to a wide variety of variously aged students. This systemic diversity enables a versatile methodological flexibility. Why do I teach?
Fundamentally for evolution's sake. In simple terms, I consider teaching to be a natural consequence of living. We inherit an infinite number of conceptual methods for our survival, and in turn, we hand on the very same abstracted toolkit to our young. Instructing others, for some of us, creates mesmerising enrichment in the connections that occur when we are learning and teaching together.
Elegant teaching, for me, is realised in that precise moment of recognition when I witness a curious mind grasp an idea as it's own, and consequently grow. This seemingly effortless imbibing of an idea that now flowers in an organic equation of strategically-equipped questioning, and the ensuing, self-initiated search is truly exhilarating to me. I know that my job has simply been to engage the natural curiosity of the questing mind long enough for it to stimulate and motivate itself along a path of self-directed, well-resourced research. Firstly, I support the idea that all learning success is a natural consequence of desire. To effectively harness the volatile and creative energy of desire in students, and assist them in developing their own initiated task of inquiry, is in essence, the fuelling of a small-scaled, internal nuclear fusion, that when carefully tended, can create a sustained state of self-motivation and progressive forward motion in learning.
Secondly, I utilise a system of applied process acknowledgment and directed facilitation of my students' innate abilities to assist them in cognitively adapting to developmental challenges. This practical utilisation of applied acknowledgment attempts to establish a contextually positive frame around the student's own ecology of change. (eg, management of personally-experienced and physical symptoms of mental development such as stress headaches, mental lethargy during intense chapters of learning, fragmentation of congruence, social tensions etc ). My own learning specialisation, and one not limited to teaching, is adaptation. An ability to positively reframe limitation surfaced in me as a by-product of being born with congenital deformities to my hands and feet. This physical challenge afforded me a wide range of adaptive skills delivered via mechanical need. I am a self-qualified, adaptive specialist!
My greatest desire as an educator is to shuffle into view, soft-spoken, apparently settled within the stereotypical paradigm of my age, my gender, my general appearance, easily defined by my student's initial reading of my human frailties, whereupon my deepest sense of satisfaction is caused by a gradual and subtle shifting of bodies in seats, followed by the deeper, denser quiet that gradually descends as the straining of necks and puzzled looks of consternation show me, so clearly, that these hungry minds have embarked upon a journey, and are at this very moment tenaciously searching behind my back to identity the very nature of a valuable object that I have not yet, even once, alluded to holding in my hands...
My greatest desire as an educator is to shuffle into view, soft-spoken, apparently settled within the stereotypical paradigm of my age, my gender, my general appearance, easily defined by my student's initial reading of my human frailties, whereupon my deepest sense of satisfaction is caused by a gradual and subtle shifting of bodies in seats, followed by the deeper, denser quiet that gradually descends as the straining of necks and puzzled looks of consternation show me, so clearly, that these hungry minds have embarked upon a journey, and are at this very moment tenaciously searching behind my back to identity the very nature of a valuable object that I have not yet, even once, alluded to holding in my hands...
TR ©March 2009