Quotes

Conceptualising the In-Between: I. Language

Over the years, I have made many inspired allusions here on The Rhetorical WHY to a concept called the in-between (IB), often by describing the overlap imagery of the IB space as “the place where ‘one’ ends and ‘another’ begins.” For me, IB is the crux of education, the capstone, because it describes the simultaneous multiple perspective of our interaction.

The in-between concept is key to the separate works of storied philosophical educators, Ted Aoki and Gert Biesta. Aoki explores IB from the Heideggarian clearing (Lichtung), a space reserved between us for disclosure and understanding, and Biesta from the pragmatism of Dewey. Each emphasises shared experiences and communication between teachers and students, and both locate inter-relational curricular dynamics in the figurative “in-between” space that arises as Person ‘A’ and Person ‘B’ (+ ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’…) relate to – and, typically, take up interest in – each other.

As I conceptualise IB in my doctoral work, the relatedness we find in between is holistic, as much an emotional or empathetic consideration of one person for another as it is some intellectual coming-together. This holism comprises as much or as little of whatever is shared by the people involved. However, IB is even more still than this ‘place’ of joint interaction; it is an energetic interface where we find the back-and-forth dynamism of ‘process’ in process – a kind of underway-ness that our cultural eyes seem trained to not see. For being figurative, IB is yet very real.

A brief foray into philosophy can help illustrate how or why Aoki, or Biesta, or you or me or anyone might decide to take up interest in the IB concept, beginning with a study by Charles Taylor of Heidegger:

“The human agent is here an emanation of cosmic spirit.… [T]he idea of expression itself can nudge us toward a third way of locating the clearing. It gives us a notion of the clearing which is essentially Dasein-related… [b]ut it doesn’t place the clearing simply inside us as a representation; it puts it instead in a new space constituted by expression. And in some versions it can acknowledge that the constituting of this space is not simply our doing.”

(Taylor, 2005, p. 445, added emphasis)

Taylor’s broader focus here is language. He describes what he believes Heidegger felt was the nature or aim of a cosmic spirit – although whether that’s either or both nature or aim is harder to discern. In any case, he describes a composite recognition of reality, negotiated between beings (Seiendes), that is not “placed ‘within’ minds, but… out between the interlocutors” (p. 445, added emphasis). As one person expresses, another perceives, and between them occurs an understanding – that is, from continuous perceived expressions arises continual or on-going understanding.

Imagine, for instance, while dressing for Halloween, how you might react not only to your own reflection in a mirror but also to your friend’s reflection as they stand next to you: at once, you are able to take in both of your reactions. Expressions thus perceived are Heidegger’s clearing / light (Lichtung), and “its locus is the speech community” (p. 446), within which I also include non-verbal communication, such as facial expression or body language. We might imagine all our joint interactions, in person or separated, as some living demonstration of this imagery. For each at once, by both in turn, something comes simultaneously to light for each as well as for both. That simultaneity is important yet, as I would argue, more frequently missed, if not ignored.

What Taylor calls an emanating cosmic spirit seems to be some kind of tacit consensus or settlement between two (or more) peoples’ expressions that, when combined, connote some additional ‘something’, something diachronic,[1] like when scientists weigh evidence with theory in order to draw conclusions. All these continuous perceived expressions amalgamate,[2] as we might describe the gradual renovation of a building or the refitting of a ship, right down to the labour contributed by each worker: upon a pre-existing frame we each contribute to building – or rebuilding – something different, something new, something else.

The more people involved, the more potentially complex becomes the consensus that arises from all these amalgamating contributions. Such tacit consensus occurs time-upon-time between us: here and now between you and me as (currently) displaced interlocutors as well as between each of us with [ whomever ] across space and time. Within all our combinations, we are indeed “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality… .” As such, the more people involved – and preferably the more sincere our exchanges – the better. And, to paraphrase Heidegger (with added emphasis), let our consensus set a more stable foundation of shared clarity or enlightenment; let us reach a shared understanding. Otherwise, in rather more chaotic spirit, we may concede to misunderstand and bicker endlessly over fake news and alternative facts.

Rather than a will to power or a will to control, the emanating cosmic spirit aims for something more patient: a shared understanding, an on-going will to live and let live. I call it a will, which suggests vitality, but maybe it is a motive or a desire, some reason-for-being – that starts to seem more teleological, whether inherent or imbued. And I do not mean some platitude, “the will to live and let live,” like a bumper sticker. I mean literally goodwill, and here now is that hazy distinction between nature and aim: a mutually respectful sharing of existence[3] that is…

  • humble in expression
  • appreciative in community
  • inclusive of all whom we accept as well as tolerate, like as well as dislike

… and by which all our interaction and negotiating sets to thriving. As goodwill, this spirit’s thriving welcomes more than any one’s selection of some but is inclusive of all – the preferred, the desirable, the undesirable, the unfamiliar, the outcast, and all the rest as well. And where not everybody’s will is prepared to be so generous, perhaps instead seeking some need to force or to control, well hey… here’s at least one educational objective for anyone humble enough to embrace it.

And how humble are we? As compared to how certain we are about the expressions we offer to others, how generous are we willing to be? And how aware are we of our simultaneity, those expressions that others continuously receive from us while we continuously receive from them? And, in between all these, how anchored are we to the stable foundation upon which we claim the consensus of shared understanding between us, here and now as well as across space and time?

As it happens, all this concurs with Gadamer’s (2004) impression of Dasein as analogous to the Holy Spirit of the Biblical Trinity. This is not to suggest that Dasein is Biblical per se but that Dasein somehow transcends us; as a topic, then, spiritualism seems able to accommodate it. So, to continue (though not yet finish) the Biblical point, a triune impression of Dasein also squares Taylor’s assessment of Nietzsche, Leibniz, Sartre, and others whose work, he says, eventually “leads to our conceiving reality itself as emanating from will” (Taylor, 2005, p. 444). I am no expert on these particular philosophers, but theirs seems generally a branch of thinking that is, from a Biblical understanding, bound for idolatry “in the service of a triumphant will to will” (Taylor, 2005, p. 448). Theirs would supplant with human will the will of God, which created all by His utterances to “Let things be so-and-so.” In such a philosophy…

“… we come to see language as our instrument, and [Heidegger’s] clearing as something which happens in us [i.e. inherently selfish within us, not in the clearing negotiated between interlocutors].… At the end of this road is the reduction of everything to standing reserve in the service of a triumphant will to will. In the attempt to impose our light, we cover the sources of the clearing [i.e. other people and their expressions] in darkness. We close ourselves off to them [and]… the total mobilization of everything as standing reserve threatens the human essence.”

(Taylor, 2005, p. 448)

Existing between us, Taylor’s “human essence” corresponds to the goodwill mentioned above and refers to Heidegger’s “cosmic spirit” that opens this post.

In short, some wilful effort by one person to create and declare “so-and-so” frustrates the shared cosmic spirit of all the rest, by which we might otherwise negotiate a common consensus of… the way things are? … the way we perceive them to be? … the way we contribute to each other’s perceptions and understandings? Regardless, for any one person to declare “reality” is for that person to play God, which undermines all the rest,[4] even while another person might be attempting the very same thing: a battle of wills.

Conversely, if we think of reality as already created and underway, as something of which we are a part, not from which we are apart, then the warning is as dire as the promise is a marvel: communication, and language specifically – verbal, non-verbal, whichever kind – is no mere instrument to our being but the essence of our being, you and me and everyone, at once together: being here and now.

Click here for Part II. Logos

[1] For something diachronic, imagine a film montage: the director edits particular shots into a sequence, e.g. first, the shot of a car approaching a railway crossing; second, the shot of a steaming locomotive barrelling down the track. The two shots might actually have been filmed days, or even years, apart. But presented in sequence to an audience watching the film, they suggest the danger of a collision, especially since film audiences are accustomed to such devastating drama.

[2] In my dissertation, I imagine the accretion of rocks and gases that formed the planets around the Sun as a metaphor for the gradual historical assemblage of teachers who comprise the continuity of the on-going profession. From accretion to assemblage to amalgamation, I develop the imagery toward something of deepening significance or value.

[3] Note here the mutuality of people whose overlapping lives construct the complexity of a “real world” for which education is purported to prepare us, only now I highlight the feature of this mutuality that transcends time: we all live together, just not all at once.

[4] … the assumption here being that all people and their decisions and dignity are equal in stature, value, and worth. History, of course, would have us believe otherwise, which I think is Taylor’s point as well as the reason Gadamer might invoke a Biblical perspective, i.e. our inherited sinful nature – more on that in the next post.

This Just In…

Featured Photo Credit (Edited): Steve Buissinne on Pixabay

Emotions are an authentic human response – at least that’s what people say when they agree with those emotions. If it really is true, that would mean emotions are just as authentic a response when people disagree.

Probably just a handful of posts on this blog fall into the ‘rant’ category although Hey! that includes the one that started it all.

So at least the following emotions don’t lack precedent.

This Just In…

A lead on the morning news one past winter about heavy snow: “Great for skiers, bad for drivers.”

The past year, the past decade, and longer, you’ll have noticed an unquestionably gradual and ceaseless severity of weather effects, here and around the world. Heat domes, atmospheric rivers, bombs and cyclones, vortices and hurricanes and typhoons. You may also have seen news reporting that characterises the planetary climate as the enemy of motorists at the same time as it’s the victim of greenhouse gases, not to mention the harbinger of far worse to come.

From one TV news story: dozens of vehicles, some halted, some helplessly sliding, all paralysed by snow… enough to bring any motorist to tears. I’m almost paraphrasing the anchor’s light-hearted sympathy.

Each flake imperils the “unprepared” driver, who seems to risk the same foolhardy decision year upon year – though, let’s grant, it’s hard to know every circumstance. Let’s also grant that no enemy threatens winter driving quite like the reckless shitheads who lord their superior winter confidence over every other fool and sage behind the wheel: “Go home!” shouts the DB passenger of a white Eff-150 as they showboat past every stranded car they can scorn. “Go home,” as if they could. If you’re keeping score, weather thus far is not the enemy.

Someone far wiser than me will surely be explaining by now that Enemy Bad Weather is simply an affectation of our Harried Rat Race by the Charm of Morning News.

Could be… or could be the augury of addled brains, muddled thinking, and the subtle catalyst of still more unpredictable beliefs and behaviours yet to come, the kind that take decades to manifest before they’re detectable. Did you also know, you can pretty much say “shit” on TV now, and “eff” puns too. Still, as helpful as it would be, it’s hard to know for sure how long it might take culture to change as detectably as it took the climate. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Anyway… what’s to come of having reached millions upon millions of people, for whom a daily wish for good suitable weather competes with a daily war against undesirable bad weather… and all this, maybe – but, then again, maybe not – aside from an existential fight to “save the planet” while also chasing ambitions of travel and leisure and global what-not… sorry, by the way, all that was a question: ‘What’s to come of it all’?

Well, back to the news… literally the next story: “Massive overnight snowfall is the perfect storm for local ski resort!” which of course is code for ‘financial windfall’, which of course is not one but two weather metaphors to keep things light in an offhand way that says, “Have you got your shit together?”

And this from a few weeks earlier: “… forecasts predicting a risk of frost.” I can remember in the past hearing a “chance” of frost. These days, though, it’s a “risk.” A “risk” of frost. Frost.

One bleak headline even pits nature against nature although, sure enough, the frost in that story is mere backdrop for the Science that saves vulnerable naked vineyards, which of course is code for ‘commercial investment’. Granted, a belligerent “cold snap” isn’t exactly Daniel Plainview, or even Cobra Commander, but this story, with its closing remarks about “the silver bullet” – especially up against severe 60° temperature swings – betrays little beyond concern for our wine.

And exactly how do our priorities measure up with our frivolities – or, sorry, is that no longer a distinction? Anyway, I’m told we don’t use upmarket words like “frivolities” because too much Inside Baseball gets us too deep in the weeds… a risk of losing the audience, you know – must be that eff-word thing again.

Same week, same newscast… multiple winter tornadoes: “destructive” and “devastating.” A few weeks prior… once-a-century local flooding that restores a lake upon the flood plain, at the cost of homes, livestock, and livelihoods. Two weeks later… winter wildfires: “frightening” and “deadly.” In truth, all of these were terrible and damaging events – and all preceded the catastrophes of Lahaina and Los Angeles by two and three years’ time.

Against these events, and their human cost, rate this post as little more than a callous, self-absorbed tantrum.

Then rate the incoherence of news outlets, as they forewarn “Icy danger!” while smirking at “Snowy fun!” – nothing seems amiss? News outlets that prosecute seasonal war against the bitter “risk” of frost, and a cold-hearted enemy known only as “snow”… then broadcast the roar of trucks and ploughs and blowers, and hail those diesel heroes who salt and clear our roadways for the very traffic that helps to pollute and push our climate – and us – toward severe and unquestionable doom…

Against all this we might ask whether the recasting of “Global Warming” as “Climate Change” instead might have been, “Global Just Pleasantly Wintry-slash-Summery Enough Everywhere All the Time in the Place I Live – but, I mean, not too hot, and not too cold, and not too rainy, but not so dry… especially for, like, Vacation – but, other than that, yeah no, totally! yes! Save the Planet and all because, like – are you kidding me? – look what we’ve done, I mean, it’s just awful.”

Which brings us to one last cringe-worthy critique – this one not a headline but a slogan: “We’re killing the planet.”

Is there really no better statement to replace this ridiculous assertion of self-importance self-impotence? … no statement that captures the human species’ relatively momentary historical insignificance in contrast to the vast entirety of the planet??? … its perpetual environment, its magnetic and gravitational forces, its eons of solar formation and space-time existence at 4.5 billion-with-a-‘b’ billion years, it’s out-and-out gargantuan volume, mass, and physical composition – really? We think we are killing that?

Imagine that dolly shot from [ latest streaming dystopian holocaust ] with all the shrubs and weeds reasserting themselves through twisted concrete rubble, as the sun shines down once more. And, let’s rant – er, let’s grant – that we have reached a point where I could hardly blame the Planet for preferring to sustain life without us – except, of course, the planet has no preference because the planet is no enemy. It’s a planet.

A.I. Image Credit: Jack Drafahl on Pixabay

So… sorry, not sorry: we are not killing the planet.

And looking back on our 0.007% share of its history, there isn’t a soul alive or dead who could boast otherwise. Flipside, for those who have been keeping score: consider in return the number of people over our centuries upon centuries upon centuries of history who have been affected – killed or otherwise – by the Planet’s natural geological activity… at worst, we’re a nuisance upon its face.

“We’re killing the planet.” Does nothing in this statement betray the same hubris that caused all our problems in the first place? Rest assured, the Planet will see to us and be just fine long after we’re gone.

If we’re killing anything, it’s hope of our own tolerable survival as planetary inhabitants so, yeah no, we do face real urgency to get behind a perspective that fears an existential threat because it fears the planet – which, by the way, is one last subtle play on eff-words.

As for the influence we continue to inflict upon the face of the Planet, we’re all of us indisputably reckless shitheads for our collective failed stewardship. And any triage of priorities and frivolities – of enjoyment and antagonism, danger and fun – will confirm that these are not the planet’s response to all our spewed contaminants – these are our response(s). If you have been keeping score, by now you’ll surely see: the enemy is us.

We imperil only ourselves.

“Pogo” by Walt Kelly

Learning As Renovation

Featured Photo Credit (Edited): Monica Silvestre on Pexels

I have already offered an analogy for learning as a kind of renovation. It’s no perfect comparison – no “analogy” is meant to be – so feel free to use your imagination. What I like is the suggestion of integrity and the potential for improvement: something original remains, upon which we build and rebuild.

From that earlier post:

“Renovation also happens to suit a constructivist perspective on learning, i.e. learning as an active process during which someone integrates new experiences with what they already know. Yet this distinction between ‘what is known’ and ‘what is new’ has also been an avenue for critiquing constructivism’s overwhelming predominance, as has the general notion that active learners mean passive teachers, as has the nuance of what ‘active’ even means – thinking about stuff or doing stuff. Other nuances distinguish something learned from something experienced and something internal or uniquely derived from something external or belatedly accepted as consensus.”

With all that said, what statement about learning is credible without some thought afforded to teaching – I began sketching that out, too, at the time. So… Take 2: ‘learning as renovation’ means what for teaching? What exactly is teaching?

Photo Credit: Brett Jordan on Unsplash

For me, these questions just prompt more questions. One, well known to educators for being contentious, asks ‘What is worth teaching?’ As compared to the die-hard habits of so-called traditional teaching, our 21st century constructi-verse might hone a laudibly more nuanced sensitivity for whichever teaching better suits the thing being learned. But since education today seems wholly fixed upon the future, we might better proceed from ‘What is worth teaching?’ to the deeper complication that Pinar carves inside the politics of curriculum: ‘What knowledge is of most worth?’ By this, of course, I take him really to be asking, ‘Whose knowledge…?’ and on it goes, that contention.

Of course, values change, even as change takes decades or more. But what these particular questions implicate – or, rather, who they implicate – seems to be haves and have-nots as the future sends the past on its way. Put another way, the general response to ‘Whose knowledge is of most worth?’ seems to be one more clarification: ‘At which moment in history do you mean?’ which prompts questions further still, such as those arising more recently about Truth and Reconciliation and how educators might most appropriately respond, given the unknowable future.

In my doctoral work, I conceptualise curriculum as relational, i.e. an interpretive process underway between and among each student-teacher pairing, such that each person involved is contributing to every other by sincerity of their shared interests, i.e. “whose interests…?” Of course, since everyone has a backstory that no one else can know completely, peoples’ lives are more complex than first glance can suggest. That means any assumption made is a leap to conclusion, which is true, for instance, of even our closest relationships, much less between students and teachers.

Less commonly posed than ‘What knowledge is of most worth?’ is a question that seems to reach a likelier core of contention: ‘Whose knowledge… ?’

Likewise, as each teacher has a unique perspective on learning – like this reflection of mine – a teacher in the classroom is bound to know their school and its students in a way the rest of us never could and, thus, that teacher will apply their perspective in ways the rest of us never would. This, too, is true of us all in relation to each other, and any constructive way forward would seem to rest upon a sincere and joint interaction.

In that way, as teachers are able to grant each student’s unique perspective and backstory, they are also obliged to acknowledge each student’s needs, then offer a curricular experience that informs and persuades while still leaving space for each student, i.e. “whose needs, whose space…?” in order that each might make more meaningful sense of their own learning.

By analogy, then, this would seem to make teaching a kind of renovation plan, loose yet backed by at least two key factors: (i) sound foresight, which translates to careful, informed planning that aims for some defined vision, i.e. “whose vision…?” and (ii) a set of reliable tools, which is really to say the resourcefulness, compassion, and patience required to apply each tool in the most suitable way at the most appropriate time.

… that ‘Toolkit’ you hear so much about? For me, no, in fact… not exactly
Photo Credit: Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

Of course, all this as metaphor sounds ideal whereas, in practice, nothing is guaranteed; renovation is seldom so tidy a business. More famously, it tends to get more complicated and even turns out some rather untimely outcomes.

Classrooms, by comparison, while complex can also be the most enjoyable places, and unlike renovations as we typically know them, I’m not sure learning needs to get more complicated than respecting the dignity of everyone involved. Beyond that, the rest is up to us as teachers and learners, albeit in distinctive roles, as we nonetheless learn and teach each other in ways that leave space where everyone is able to build and rebuild.