Teaching and Learning as a Pedagogic Pilgrimage

Cultivating Faith, Hope and Imagination

Nuraan Davids, Yusef Waghid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367001230
• eBook ISBN: 9780429815034
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Teaching and Learning as a Pedagogic Pilgrimage is premised on an argument that if higher education is to remain responsive to a public good, then teaching and learning must be in a perpetual state of reflection and change. It argues in defence of teaching and learning as constitutive of a pedagogic pilgrimage and draws on a range of scholars and theories to explore concepts such as transcendental journeys, belief, hope and imagination. The main objective of the book is to show how teaching and learning ought to be reconsidered in relation to that which lies beyond the parameters of the encounters, as well as that which is intrinsic to the encounters.

This book gives shape to rituals and routines of engagement and debate, before extending the limitations in deliberative pedagogic encounters to offer desirable outcomes in which both student and teacher can practice a spiritual take on teaching and learning along a continuum of ongoing action. Themes explored in the chapters include the following:

• 
  
  

• Faith and deliberative encounters

• 
  
  

• Post-human ethics of care in teaching and learning

• 
  
  

• Diffracted teaching and learning

This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, and teaching and learning in the philosophy of education. It will also appeal to school and university educators, policymakers and prospective teachers.

1 Transcending the limitations of argumentation and persuasion

Towards a renewed understanding of deliberative encounters

Introduction

In much of our earlier works, we espoused an understanding of teaching and learning as a deliberative encounter. We have since moved away from the clichés of teaching for learning, and teaching as learning, towards an understanding of teaching with learning or learning with teaching. On the one hand, teaching for learning implies that what one teaches is aimed at engendering learning. This means that learning can only be effected on the basis of teaching. That is, without teaching, there cannot be learning. On the other hand, teaching as learning simply integrates teaching and learning. When one teaches, another learns. Our understanding of teaching and learning is that both pedagogic actions have a right to exist on their own, although there might not necessarily be a disconnect between the two actions as both teaching and learning for and as imply. Put differently, teaching and learning are interconnected pedagogic actions and are most appropriately elucidated on the basis of their mutuality, hence teaching with learning. Inasmuch as teaching with learning already transcends notions such as teaching for learning and teaching as learning, we contend that teaching with learning is an inherently democratic encounter. That is, the encounter is democratic on the basis that humans engage in some form of meaning-making – more specifically, teaching and learning, whereby they bring one another’s perspectives into pedagogic play. On the one hand, one teaches when one offers a justification for what one does, such as either socialising students into particular understandings or initiating them into critical ways of seeing events in the world. On the other hand, one learns when one makes sense of that into which one is socialised, or into which one has been initiated. The aforementioned acts of teaching and learning are democratic on the basis that one offers an account of what one understands and, in turn, provokes others to make sense of what they are taught or what they have learnt. The democratic ethos of mutual teaching and learning lies in the evocation of others’ understandings of why and how they perceive things in particular ways, which, in turn, offer them some opportunity to give a response to their learning. In other words, democratic teaching and learning do not merely happen on the basis that because someone teaches, someone else learns. One’s learning is guided by one’s capacity to respond to one’s learning, which includes critically engaging with and bringing into question what is being taught. For instance, one learns through talking back, as Seyla Benhabib (2011) would argue. In this chapter, we shall endeavour to explicate the practice of mutual teaching and learning, more specifically what it means to engage in a deliberative encounter. Concomitantly, we show why deliberative encounters cannot just be confined to argumentation and persuasion as ways in which teaching and learning manifest in pedagogic action.

Deliberative encounters and moving beyond an ideal speech and talking back

When students and teachers engage in mutually deliberative encounters, they proffer enunciations on the basis of listening to what one another has to say. Without listening to others, it would be difficult to articulate speech to which others would equally enjoy listening. Put differently, if teachers wish to cultivate spaces in which students are inclined to listen, then their teaching has to be of such a nature that it takes into account other perspectives and a preparedness to consider other ways of thinking. Teaching, therefore, cannot only be understood as the teacher talking; teaching has to create and encourage spaces in which students can talk back – whether in agreement or not. That is, the exercise of speech is dependent on having been considered by those with whom one is in deliberation. Inasmuch as elocution is an enabling condition of deliberation, it is insufficient without listening. Likewise, listening to others is also insufficient without responding to what one has listened to, which includes having taken into controversy someone else’s speech act. If the latter does not happen, we cannot talk of deliberative engagement. Deliberation is dependent on elocution, listening and re-elocutions. Similarly, when a teacher teaches, his or her teaching is dependent upon what sense students make of his or her articulations and to which they (students) respond in turn. Equally so, teachers then offer counter-elucidations on the basis of which meaning is deliberatively formed. And, when counter-elucidations are proffered, the possibility is always there to construe others’ perspectives as tantamount to talking back. The question arises: Is talking back enough in deliberative encounters?

For Benhabib (2011:129),

[Democratic iterations or talking back are] complex processes of public argument, deliberation, and exchange through which universalist rights claims are contested and contextualized, invoked and revoked, posited and positioned throughout legal and political institutions, as well as in the associations of civil society … Every iteration transforms meaning, adds to it, enriches it in ever so subtle ways … Every act of iteration involves making sense of an authoritative original in a new and different context.

Drawing on Derrida’s (1988) concept of iterability, Benhabib (2011) introduces the concept of democratic iterations to refer to processes whereby individuals speak and deliberate in the name of universalist rights, and in doing so, alter existing viewpoints. Previously, and also with reference to the concept of iteration, Benhabib (1992) argued that the moral perspective must be to take into account the perspective of the generalised other as well as the concrete, situated other. In this sense, who individuals are and become is always mediated through human actions, relationships and narratives – and are altered as they are told and retold in different ways. At the core of democratic iterations are practices of contestation and contextualisation. Whereas contesting a point of view relates to taking issue with what has been said or argued for, contextualising a viewpoint relates to making sense of such a view in relation to one’s situatedness – a matter of making sense of a view vis-à-vis one’s embeddedness. Teaching and learning cannot take place without some cognisance of the situatedness of students. Situatedness not only refers to contexts of race, religion, culture, language, nationality, age, able-bodiedness, sexuality or capability; it also refers to the context in which teaching and learning unfold. Making sense of and concomitantly taking issue with viewpoints raise the idea of invoking a claim and then revoking it. And, considering that every act of iteration involves making sense of and simultaneously taking issue with the possibility of argumentation becomes more pronounced, which in turn, ‘transforms meaning,’ ‘enriches it’ and makes sense of it ‘in a new and different context’ (Benhabib, 2011:75). Practices of democratic iteration in the classroom facilitate complex processes of back-and-forth engagement between teachers and students and among the students – which is why iteration has the capacity to transform and enrich meaning. The point about democratic iterations is that such iterations give rise to new possibilities and transformative meanings in that it has the capacity to evoke self-reflection and reconsideration. Simply put, democratic iterations as a consequence of deliberation could cultivate argumentation.

Jürgen Habermas (1999:304) elucidates democratic engagement as a discursive process of opinion and will-formation towards the cultivation of debate, discussion and persuasion. To Habermas (1999:304–305), an ideal procedure of deliberation, and argumentation towards persuasion in an atmosphere free from external coercion, are what makes deliberative encounters inclined towards criticism and equal participation by all. More poignantly, Habermas (1999:306) considers persuasion as a rationally motivated form of agreement in terms of which shared traditions and forms of life are democratically justified and resolved. Thus, for Habermas (1999:309), deliberative politics ought to be geared towards reaching consensus on the basis of persuasion. Therefore, unless teachers can persuade students about their opinions and perspectives, consensus-based deliberative encounters among teachers and students may not be forthcoming. The basis of any form of deliberative engagement is premised on the idea that communication ought to be constrained by acts of persuasion. Yet what Habermas seems to be remiss of is that persuasion cannot always remain a condition of safeguarding discursive communication. It might be that teachers are not always capable of persuading students about some political matter, nor should it be the expectation that students should be persuaded on this or that matter. However, a lack of persuasion does not by implication mean that deliberative engagement has not achieved a desirable outcome. It could be that students and teachers might give further consideration to the views they articulate, especially those that do not convincingly persuade. For example, teachers do not have to persuade students through teaching that migration of communities from one region to another is wrong on the basis that such a form of persuasion – besides bordering on the edge of indoctrination – does not leave students open to coming to their own conclusions. Instead, they seem to be told something about migrating communities, which from the start imposes an opinion on students without them having engaged with the matter. Hence, we concur with Habermas’ view that ‘participants in argumentation proceed on the idealizing assumption of a communication community without limits in social space and historical time’ (1999:322). That is, it is not just because persuasion has not been pursued that deliberative argumentation has not been harnessed. Of course not. Simply put, persuasion does not amount to informing others or telling them what is right or wrong. Rather, persuasion ought to emanate from the engagement of teachers and students and not be considered a precondition for engagement. Telling students by way of imposing one’s views on them without them (students) having made sense of one’s thoughts is tantamount to indoctrination and an act that renders deliberation null and void. One can still engage in deliberative politics without the restriction of persuasion. In a similar way, ‘talking back’ should not be considered a necessary condition of deliberative engagement. One can still deliberate without having to show the capacity of talking back to others.

What follows from the aforementioned argument is that deliberative engagement cannot be constrained by a politics of talking back and persuasion. Just because the latter practices have not ensued does not mean that no deliberative argumentation occurred. It could be that talking back to anything and everything might compromise deliberation. For instance, talking back for the sake of talking back does not always sustain deliberative communication. It might be that talking back becomes an exercise in futility whereby someone merely talks back without provoking serious communication. In this sense, many students choose not to talk back, but their choice not to talk back is not necessarily an indicator that deliberative argumentation has not occurred. Similarly, just wanting to persuade for the sake of persuasion could also hinder free-flowing ideas and views, which in most cases result in deviation from the point rather than illuminating it. Placing too much emphasis on convincing others might cause them not to engage freely, which in any case would stunt deliberative communication. Put differently, talking back and persuasion are not always desirable practices to sustain deliberative encounters. Of course, we are not denying the fact that, at times, talking back and persuasion ought to be pursued. However, it should not happen at the expense of deliberation itself. This means there might be times when talking back and persuasion are not practices that ought to constrain deliberative encounters. Instead, talking back and persuasion end when the possibility of exclusion surfaces. It is not as if talking back and persuasion should always hold sway. That in itself could, at times, constrain deliberation as some of the speeches being talked back could also be counter-productive to the deliberative communication itself. Likewise, if persuasion were to be relentlessly pursued, deliberative argumentation might also become too trivial as it might be too excessive. We think of teachers who insist on persuading students, yet fail to include them on account of these teachers’ often belligerent obsession to persuade. The upshot of the aforementioned discussion on persuasion in and through deliberation brings into consideration an idea that deliberation cannot and should not always be subjected to persuasion.

Deliberative encounters as a pilgrimage

If deliberative encounters cannot be exclusively linked to talking back and persuasion, what would such encounters actually look like? In some way, this question provoked in us an interest to look at something else beyond the deliberative encounters, which, we contend, cannot just be reliant on talking back and persuasion. Consequently, we agree that one practice that we have in common and which potentially offers a different way of thinking about encounters is related to the idea of a pilgrimage. We have specifically invoked the idea of a pilgrimage on account of both our own encounters as Muslim pilgrims to Makkah (in Saudi Arabia) in the late 1990s and early 2000s, respectively. We thought it apposite to bring into play the idea of a pilgrimage as a way to think differently about a deliberative encounter. Undertaking a pilgrimage to Makkah is firstly related to a deliberate quest for consolidating our faiths as Muslims. Secondly, as pilgrims, we were deeply inspired by a curiosity to understand something about the experiences of the Prophet of Islam as he propagated his divine message in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah – two prominent Arabian cities in which holy mosques of Islam are situated – the two magnificent Harams or mosque spaces – and which are still revered by millions of Muslims today as the two significant holy sites of Islam together with the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Thirdly, our own emotional and intellectual growth as humans is directly linked to our conscious dedication to pilgrimage or Hajj – the fifth pillar of the Islamic doctrine. The Muslim pilgrimage culminates on the plains of Mount Arafat, also known as the Mount of Mercy (Jabal al-Rahmah), during which Muslims gather in the hope of forgiveness and a renewed way of being and acting. Turner (1973:214–215) explains:

[The pilgrim is] confronted by sequences of sacred objects and participates in symbolic activities which he [or she] believes are efficacious in changing his [or her] inner and, sometimes, hopefully, outer condition from sin to grace, or sickness to health. He [or she] hopes for miracles and transformations, either of soul or body. As we have seen, in the pilgrim’s movement toward the ‘holy of holies’, the central shrine, the route becomes increasingly sacralized as it progresses: at first it is his [or her] subjective mood of penitence that is important while the many long miles he [or she] covers are mainly secular, everyday miles; then sacred symbols begin to invest the route; while in the final stages, the route itself becomes a sacred, sometimes mythical journey until almost every landmark and every step is a condensed, multivocal symbol capable of arousing much affect and desire. No longer is the pilgrim’s sense of the sacred private; it is a matter of objectified collective representations which become virtually his [or her] whole environment and give him [or her] powerful motives for credence. Not only that – the pilgrim’s journey becomes a paradigm for other kinds of behavior ethical, political, etc.

The idea of a pilgrimage is, of course, in no way, limited to the religion of Islam. Religious traditions all over the world attach particular importance and reverence to specific holy sites, which are deemed imperative to particular religious identities, histories, traditions and values. Turner (1973:213–214) describes the pilgrimage as ‘beginning in a Familiar Place, going to a Far Place, and returning, ideally “changed”’. A pilgrimage to these sacred sites holds particular associations and enactments of connectedness and sacredness, and is often couched in a language of spirituality and transcendence. Shintos, for example, journey to Three Grand Shrines, or the Ise Shrine Okage Mairi, which celebrates the Shinto goddess Amaterasu. In Buddhism, there are four sacred pilgrimage sites, all of which are connected to the birth of Lord Buddha and located in the Gangetic plains of Northern India and Southern Nepal. These sites are Lumbini, the birthplace of Lord Buddha; Bodh Gaya, where Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment under the Bodhi tree; Sarnath, where Lord Buddha delivered his first teaching to five monks; and Kushinagar, which is the holy site where Lord Buddha chose to die. Likewise, Christians might choose to trace the footsteps of Jesus by visiting his birthplace in Bethlehem, the church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, and the Mount of Beatitudes, or the Jordan River Baptismal Site. Various practices of pilgrimages span across a range of religious and ideological terrains, inasmuch as they can be described as metaphorical explorations into the self.

In turn, scholars like Eade and Sallnow (1991:15–16) describe a pilgrimage as a commodious arena capable of accommodating many competing religious and secular discourses. They explain,

[The allure or power of a shrine] derives in large part from its character as a religious void, a ritual space capable of accommodating diverse meanings and practices … This is what confers upon a major shrine its essential, universalistic character: its capacity to absorb and reflect a multiplicity of religious discourses.

Despite its association with sacredness, spirituality and religiosity, Clifford (1997) is of the opinion that it is possible to relate conceptions of pilgrimage to bigger projects of exploring how practices of displacement are not incidental. To Clifford, they are actually constitutive of cultural meanings in a world that is constantly ‘en route’ – that is, in motion.

In much the same way, we think about pilgrimage as a consolidation and enhancement of our faiths. We therefore look at deliberative encounters as a procedure through which participants can harness and stimulate their pedagogic activities or, more specifically, that their faith in pedagogic encounters might yield unexpected and uncalculated experiences. Likewise, being drawn to a place of worship, such as through the circumambulation of the Ka’ba in Makkah on the part of Muslim pilgrims, invariably invokes an idea that there is something at the centre of an encounter that profoundly affects participants. First, inserting faith into a deliberative encounter is tantamount to stimulating the consciousness of participants to have faith in deliberation without knowing – perhaps in advance – what the encounter might yield. This implies that teachers and students would want to engage in encounters because being drawn to its centre might produce something unexpected or improbable. Second, revering sites of worship during a pilgrimage is like paying homage to the encounter that will not result in the exclusion of others. By implication, during an encounter, teachers and students become obliged to treat one another with reverence. Third, and most significantly, dedicating one’s emotional and intellectual growth to the experience of a pilgrimage is to immerse oneself in an act of reverence that one hopes would bring about lasting civilisational change in oneself and in others – a matter of invoking communally shared action of interest to humanity. As pilgrims engage in a perpetual intellectual and emotional journey, we deem it apposite to attribute our continuous human advancement to what it means to serve humanity with zest and wholehearted dedication. And, as we shall argue throughout the remaining chapters, deliberative encounters cannot be confined exclusively to acts of listening, articulation, talking back and persuasion. Rather, like a pilgrimage, encounters should also be about the not yet thought of, faith and reverence in the established traditions and in the curiosity to uncover new and revered acts of doing that can enhance our humanity. As Muha...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1 Transcending the limitations of argumentation and persuasion: towards a renewed understanding of deliberative encounters
• 2 Deliberative encounters and the quest for transcendence
• 3 On faith and deliberative encounters
• 4 On hope and deliberative encounters
• 5 Cultivating imagination through deliberative encounters
• 6 What makes a good (ethical) teacher?
• 7 Towards a post-human ethics of care in teaching and learning
• 8 Doctoral supervision as a process of ethical becoming
• 9 Diffracted teaching and learning
• 10 Teaching and learning as endeavours of power, resistance and human flourishing
• 11 Reflections on our pedagogic pilgrimages
• Postscript: on the pilgrimage of writing
• Index