3: Learning as lived experience

                In this post I will continue to explore the ideas of Hannah Arendt- but this time- in conversation with Maxine Greene (1995, pp.58). As we look at how “meaning is for the subject” we will move to look at the theory/practice division through a phenomenological perspective (Van Manen, 1997). This perspective will frame the next post and will echo in this conversation with Greene and Arendt. When Maxine Greene says “meaning is for the subject [...] and meanings are always identified in a field” she speaks to how children create meaning through their lived experience within the parameters of the world they see, feel, hear and build relationships with. But, she also speaks to the ways teachers have created meanings about education, children, families and students. As we disrupt the division between theory and practice, we will also disrupt the division between teachers and students. We will look at the idea of the teacher as a researcher- as a co-constructor of knowledge.

Here is a video that shows someone theorizing their world and gaining new perspective from the distance that comes when entering in a dialogue with yourself through thought.

Theory and practice
Uploaded by huubkoch. - Explore international webcam videos.

                Greene (1995, pp. 59) challenges the theory/practice divide as she states that “lived worlds themselves must be open to reflection and transformation.” A teacher’s image of her role is shaped by her own history as a student, her professional development, her understanding of the cultural image of the teacher, and by the expectations of the role of the teacher that the children, families, and political sphere bring to her (Mac Naughton, 2005). This image creates specific ideas about what a teacher can and cannot do that define what is possible in the classroom for that educator. They also define how she sees the child and who is allowed to emerge in her classroom.  Greene (1995, pp.183) quotes Arendt’s description of a place where things could be saved from destruction that relies

on the simultaneous presence of innumerable perspectives and aspects in which the common world presents itself and for which no common measurement or denominator can ever be devised. For though the common world is the common meeting ground of all, those who are present have different locations in it.... Being seen and heard by others derive their significance from the fact that everybody sees and hears from a different position.... Only where things can be seen by many in a variety of aspects without changing their identity, so that those gathered around them know they see sameness in utter diversity, can wordly reality truly and reliably appear.  

            As we acknowledge that we learn through our experiences in the world and the meaning we make in our daily encounters- Arendt asks us what kind of space we have constructed for learning. She questions the hierarchies of knowledge in our classrooms- the privileging of reading, writing and arithmetic over other forms of learning and the legitimization of specific behaviours. When we take up Foucault’s (Mac Naughton, 2005) ideas that point to the political nature of education, we can see that only certain perspectives are heard in our classrooms and only certain ways of seeing are legitimized. How can we think differently about education? How can we think differently about children and teachers? How does this theorizing allow the voices of others to be heard?

Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Liss, D. (Film Maker). (2006, February 3). Theory: practice [online video]. New York: Pouringdown. Retrieved from http://pouringdown.tv/?p=21

Mac Naughton, G. (2005). Doing Foucault in early childhood studies: Applying poststructural ideas. New York: Routledge.

Van Manen, M. (1997). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action Sensitive Pedagogy(2^nd ed.). London, Ontario: The Althouse Press.