Week 5: (Annotated Bibliography) Biesta (2012) Giving Teaching Back to Education: Responding to the Disappearance of the Teacher

My goal is engage Biesta in a philosophical discussion (because his arguments are largely philosophical). Also, I would like to hone my skills in this form of writing. I’ve noticed that most of the compulsory readings are very philosophical and I’ve not done much of such writing.

In essence, my argument is that there can be learning and education when there is a learner but no teacher, but there is no learning or education when there is no learner, because there is teacher.

After reading this article, the first metaphor that came to me is that of driving. For Biesta, the constructivist approach to teaching and learning is the teacher is no longer the driver, who decides the destination and the route, and the student is not just a passenger. Instead, the teacher is merely a driving instructor, seated next to the student at the wheel. The instructor isn’t entirely doing the teaching, but providing feedback and guidance as an when it is needed. Moreover, this metaphor seems fitting because with the rise of new technologies, the teacher can be replaced by a gadget or application, such as a Sat Nav machine or Google Maps.

(ILE: Illyas Lim Effandi’s thoughts)

Learnification, Constructivism and the Teacher as Facilitator

Biesta starts off by criticizing the constructivist view that centralizes the student and by doing so diminishes the role of the teacher to that of a facilitator. The author argues that “the point of education is never that students learn, but they learn something, for particular purposes and that they learn it from someone” (p. 38). And, according to Biesta, even the environment plays a larger role than the teacher.

ILE: I agree with Biesta that teachers have somewhat been pushed to the periphery, Biesta’s stand is too extreme. Personally, I believe the agency in learning, education and even teaching lies primarily with the learner. We teachers must not forget that it is the learner that selects the course of study, makes the effort to come to class and applies the learnt concepts to his or her reality.

Here, I would like to look at Dornyei’s (2000) ‘L2 Motivational Self System”. In this theory, the learner can be described as currently being at his or her “actual self” and is constantly working towards his or her “idealised self”. While the teacher is partly responsible for defining this “idealised self”, ultimately it is the learner’s choice whether or not to accept this.

Moreover, no pedagogical approach or philosophy disregards the environment. In language learning, even Chomsky (1972), who is considered the father of the Innatist hypothesis, acknowledges the role of a linguistically rich environment in revealing the innate knowledge of various linguistic rules, constraints and principles contained within the language faculty. Teachers need to maximise their environment to their advantage because boarding an answer could help retention and providing more context could aid comprehension.

Teleology, Pragmatism and Judgement

Then, Biesta (2012) moves on to highlight the need for “judgements about education” should be made by the teacher and not doing so “misses the point of what teaching is really about” (p. 40) because it means that the teacher becomes an “unresponsive robot” tasked with only the execution of a lesson.

ILE: It is not uncommon for agendas (be it political, cultural or institutional) to be embedded in learning content. For example, a passage used to teach English comprehension could also be strategically or surreptitiously used to impart a school or state’s view on diversity. Even in the most authoritarian top-down educational regimes, the teacher will still always be able to exercise his or her judgment to some degree. While the teacher might face repercussions for not taking the institutional stand on the content, he or she would not be faulted for correcting a student’s grammar or dictating the student’s writing style.

Most teachers are expected to undergo training in their country’s teacher training college. Therefore, according to the learning paradox (which Biesta invokes in the next section), how can a teacher whose entire education about education was directed by the institution be expected to question the judgements of the institution? I am not saying that it is impossible, but it would definitely be the exception and not the norm.

The Gift of Teaching

Here, Biesta (2012) argues that the school should be seen as a “place of teaching” rather than a place of learning because “teaching is not about the repetition of what is already there but bringing about something new (p. 41). Hence, the insinuation is that things that can be learnt outside of school should not be the focus of education. Teachers should strive to teach things that students are unable to learn on their own or outside of the classroom walls.

ILE: Teachers should not only focus on what cannot be learnt without the school setting. Yes, there are some concepts and topic, such as logic, that generally require formal instruction. Without a teacher, a curriculum and dedicated instruction, most of us would mistake “common sense” for logic. However, the school can also help students connect the dots between concepts or contexts.

Resistance, Education and the Middle Ground

Biesta (2012) proposes that “education is an ongoing dialogue between the self and the other” and that a student must remain in a state of “resistance”, for this to happen (p. 42). It is therefore, the responsibility of the teacher to help the student stay in this state of resistance for as long as possible.

ILE: I agree with Biesta that resistance is important for learning. It is normal to feel uncomfortable or lost when we are encountering something new. However, this is not always the case when we look at education on a larger scale. Sometimes, a student may need a teacher to recast a theory that he or she already knows in another light. Is there no learning when a teacher is providing a different explanation for a concept that already exists in the student’s knowledge bank.

Evidence, Competence or Wisdom?

Lastly, Biesta boldly and idealistically suggests that “while certain competencies may constitute a necessary condition for good teaching”, teacher’s key strength is his or her wisdom that “comes with age or better: that it comes with experience and more specifically that comes with the experience of engaging oneself in the exercise of such judgements”

ILE: I find this notion to be extremely misleading. It seems like is Biesta is taking a transhumanist (Bayne, 2015) in his evaluation of teachers because they can only get better with time and experience as they continually gain “wisdom”. Teachers can be very flawed. I’ve met teachers who are extremely rigid in their views, unreceptive to feedback and uninterested in improving themselves in general. Refer to my previous post for my discussion on how teachers are biased. The line separating wisdom and delusion isn’t always very thick.

References:

Bayne, S. (2014). What’s the matter with ‘technology-enhanced learning’? Learning, Media and Technology, 40(1), 5-20.

Biesta, G. J. (2016). Giving Teaching Back to Education: Responding to the Disappearance of the Teacher. Pedagogía Y Saberes, (44), 119-129.

Dörnyei, Z. (2000). Teaching and researching motivation (Applied linguistics in action). Harlow: Longman.

Chomsky, N. (1990). “On the nature, acquisition and use of language”, in Mind and Cognition: A Reader, W.G. Lycan (ed.), Cambridge MA and London UK: Blackwells, pp.627-45.