Radical experiment in dialogic pedagogy in higher education and its centaur failure: Chronotopic analysis

173 Pages·2013·2.592 MB·English

by  Eugene Matusov, Joseph Brobst

EDUCATION IN A COMPETITIVE AND GLOBALIZING WORLD

R E D
ADICAL XPERIMENT IN IALOGIC
P H E
EDAGOGY IN IGHER DUCATION
I C F
AND TS ENTAURIC AILURE

CHRONOTOPIC ANALYSIS
E C
DUCATION IN A OMPETITIVE
G W
AND LOBALIZING ORLD

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EDUCATION IN A COMPETITIVE AND GLOBALIZING WORLD
R E D
ADICAL XPERIMENT IN IALOGIC
P H E
EDAGOGY IN IGHER DUCATION
I C F
AND TS ENTAURIC AILURE
CHRONOTOPIC ANALYSIS
EUGENE MATUSOV
AND
JOSEPH BROBST
New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Radical experiment in dialogic pedagogy in higher education and its centauric failure :
chronotopic analysis / editor, Eugene Matusov.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-62257-362-2 (hardcover)
1. Questioning. 2. Education, Higher--Philosophy. 3. Interaction analysis in education. I.
Matusov, Eugene.
LB1027.44.R33 2012
371.3'7--dc23
2012024214

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York
CONTENTS

Introduction vii
The Relevant Background and the Organization of the 2008-Spring Graduate
Research Seminar on Dialogic Pedagogy xv
Chapter 1 My Pedagogical Dreams for the Seminar to Be: History and
Pedagogical Organization of the Innovative Research Seminar 1
Chapter 2 Seminar Participants 5
Chapter 3 My Pedagogical Dreams for the Seminar to Be: Educational
Colleagueship of ―Consciousnesses with Equal Rights‖ 7
Chapter 4 Rough Chronology of Events 13
Before the Storm: My Growing Concerns 17
Chapter 5 Curricular Tensions 19
Chapter 6 Colleagueship versus Studentship: Teacher Orientation 23
Chapter 7 Ambivalence of the Students‘ Ownership for Their Own
Learning Activities 33
Chapter 8 Student Agency, Freedom, Important Learning
Experiences and Waste 37
Chapter 9 A Disconnect between Ontology and Didactics 45
The Perfect Storm: Things Happened Rather Than Being Responsibly Enacted 47
The Turmoil: Emergence of the Regime of Blame 53
Ontological Investigations and Penetrating Discourse on Graduate Students'
Academic Disengagement 61
Chapter 10 Passionate Professionalism, Dilettantism, and Aspiration 63
Chapter 11 John‘s Dilettante Orientation and My Penetrating Discourse
about His Troublesome Ontology 67
vi Contents
Pains from the Penetrating Words and Ontological Investigations
of the Students’ Academic Agency That I Caused 79
Is the J-Chronotope Possible in the School Context? 91
Chapter 12 Developmental Hypothesis about the Student‘s Academic
Critical Agency 95
Chapter 13 School Detoxification Hypothesis: Alienation Vacation 101
Chapter 14 School as Anti-Journey Chronotope Hypothesis 105
Chapter 15 The Dialogic Pedagogy Café Hypothesis: Analysis of Edwards‘
Pedagogical Desires and Open Syllabus 107
Conceptual Conclusion: My Pedagogical Lessons 109
Anti-Methodological Considerations: Research Mastery 119
Chapter 16 The Exact Science and Its Methodology 121
Chapter 17 The Humanitarian Science and Its Research Mastery
(Anti-Methodology) 127
Chapter 18 A Proposal for a Theory of Truth in the Humanitarian Science:
A Brief Outline 131
Chapter 19 Toward Dialogic Truthfulness of the Humanitarian Science 133
Appendix A: John’s Reflection Essay on His Class Experiences 135
References 145
Index 155
INTRODUCTION

The doctoral …course took on a life of its own, like Frankenstein, achieving effects
beyond the original intention and desires of its creators and its students.
Lesko, Simmons, Quarshie, and Newton, 2008, p. 1542

The main purpose of this book is to make sense of the events and its meaning regarding
my radical experiment in dialogic pedagogy which occurred in the spring of 2008. This
pedagogical experiment happened during a graduate research seminar on dialogic pedagogy
in which I was the teacher. I am Eugene Matusov, the first author, and will be signified as
―Edward‖ in this book to separate from my current authorial voice. I will intentionally mix
pronouns ―my‖ and ―his‖ here, to keep our affinity and avoid objectification of my past.
Basically, Edward wanted to make his course design to fit the course content (i.e., dialogic
pedagogy). In the middle of the course, Edward realized through growing tensions in the class
that there was a gap between what had been discussed in our seminar and how the class was
organized. Edward wanted to practice ―what he preaches‖ – namely ―dialogic pedagogy‖– so
he made some dramatic changes aiming at dropping ―oppressive‖ conditions of the class
(Shor, 1996). Edward was concerned that the notable pedagogical successes in his class were
tacitly based on ―pedagogical violence‖ (Matusov, 2009) – the system of surveillance on the
students‘ performance in the class and rewards-punishments articulated through the
instructor‘s approval-disapproval and ultimately through the final grade marks – to make the
students unconditionally cooperate with Edwards‘ pedagogical demands and assignments. He
thought that these oppressive conditions were distracting his graduate students from the
ownership for an authentic focus on their own learning by making them focus strictly on their
survival and pleasing the instructor. I want to share my innovative pedagogical experiences
and my reflection not so much because some other educators may try to repeat exactly what I
did, but because I think my reflection may afford an important critical conversation about
pedagogical innovations and pedagogy in general. It may afford asking deep and tough
questions and engaging in important inquiries about the nature of education and the issue of
how to promote students‘ agency in education.
I qualify this experience holistically as my pedagogical failure, although its pedagogical
results were ambivalent, not black and white, in my view. My focus here is not only on what
caused the pedagogical failure but also on what constitutes success and failure in dialogic
pedagogy and what constitutes ―dialogic pedagogy‖ in practice (Adler and Paideia Group,
1984; Bakhtin, 1999, 2004; Burbules, 1993; Freire, 1986; Matusov, 2009; Mercer and
Littleton, 2007; Nystrand, 1997; Paley, 1986, 1992; Plato and Bluck, 1961; Renshaw, 2004;
viii Eugene Matusov and Joseph Brobst
Sidorkin, 1999; Wegerif, 2007; Wells, 1999). By ―pedagogical failure,‖ I mean more than just
a failure of achieving the desired or planned outcomes set by the teacher in advance, but also
emotional and relational harms this pedagogical failure affected my students and me
personally, despite my best, good, kind, and humanistic larger intentions for pedagogical
innovation (i.e., intentions beyond, if not actually above, specific pedagogical actions and
their designs). This mixture or hybrid of something very-very good and something very-very
bad is, in my view, the birthmark of the phenomenon I tried to describe here. Lesko and her
colleagues (2008) described their pedagogical failure as ―pedagogy of monsters‖ and I think
this is right on the mark – this type of innovative pedagogy is monstrous indeed. But I want to
add a nuance in their term by claiming it as ―Centauric pedagogy‖ – ―Centaur‖ was a fabled
monster being half-man and half-beast in the Greek mythology. In my observation and
pedagogical experience, more often than not, an innovative educator is a pedagogical Centaur
– being half humanistic innovator and the other half crypto-oppressive conventionalist.
Sometimes this innovative educator is unable to see a clear boundary of his or perhaps her
own humanistic innovation and oppressive conventionality (Bruno Bettelheim is probably a
very good example of such an innovative educator, see Sutton, 1996). Arguably, this fuzzy
mixture can be even worse and more damaging than an outright pedagogical meritocracy or
even a direct pedagogical oppression because the latter can provide certainty for the students
and arm them with weapons for their resistance minimizing and counter-acting the teacher‘s
pedagogical, emotional, and social damage. In a case of a Centauric pedagogy, this creates a
―schizophrenic double bind‖ (Bateson, 1987) of contradicting and opposing messages, where
the participating students might be confused and trusting (at least initially); and, thus, the
damage can penetrate much deeper1. And yet, I will argue that Centauric pedagogical failure
is unavoidable and potentially even helpful – as it can illuminate for the educators the real
source of oppression, usually rooted in the teachers‘ shadowy and unreflected, but attractive,
pedagogical desires, and pave a way for alternative humanistic, democratic, and dialogic
practices.
Although my pedagogical Centauric failure generated a chain of personal conflicts and
tensions, as reflected in my account here; I do not think that the phenomenon that I had faced
was rooted in my personal relations with any particular graduate student of mine (or among
them). But, rather in a systemic breakdown of the pedagogical design which disturbed the
social relationships, for which I, as a teacher, take responsibility. Although I agree with
Bakhtin (1993), who coined the famous claim ―there is no alibi in being,‖ that people are not
determined by social structures, pedagogical designs, activity systems and are ultimately
responsible for their deeds in emergent dramatic events they collectively create, face, and
participate; I think that social structures, pedagogical designs, and activity systems make
certain social relations and events that emerge easier, while certain other social relations and
events cause it to be more difficult. And, in some cases, social structures, pedagogical
designs, and activity systems can be more rigidly closed; and in quite often for other cases,
they can be more open to a rich diversity of possible social relations and events. I believe and
show with my analysis that Edward‘s Centauric pedagogical failure was in some way a case
of the former pedagogical design problem, making a rich diversity of social relations more

1 In my judgment, the controversial French movie ―The Class‖ (Cantet, et al., 2009) is a dramatization of a
Centauric pedagogy. Also, read about another Centauric pedagogical experiment ―The Third Wave‖ made in
Palo Alto, CA, in 1967 by a social study high school teacher Ron Jones (1972).
Introduction ix
difficult, although not impossible. In other words, I concluded the participants, including
Edwards‘, were mostly trapped into flaws of the pedagogical design that Edward was hugely
responsible for. Thus, I do not provide a detailed and systematic account of diverse personal
dramas which occurred in the class. Rather I found that consideration of ―educational
chronotopes‖ – the concept borrowed from Bakhtin‘s (1991) literary analysis of novels and
developed recently by several educationalists including me (Bloome and Katz, 1997; Jensen,
2009; Matusov, 2009) -- has been useful in my analysis (I will elaborate on it later in the
book).
My other goal here is to develop a new genre of research reporting and research mastery
in the place of what is traditionally called ―methodology‖ – i.e., a method being independent
and detached of the inquiries, emerging tensions, and its material (see more discussion of this
later). Rather I tried to find a particular way of synthesis and analysis of my data through a
reflective discussion of the researcher‘s and educator‘s own pedagogical failures, conflicts of
―good‖ desires, and occasional successes. At the end of the book, I reconsider the issue and
call the academic community to move away from the notion of research methodology and
scientific method to research mastery and practical wisdom associated with it.
Although it is not for the first time, educationalists have brought to the public light a
description and analysis of their own pedagogical failures (for excellent examples in higher
education see Ellsworth, 1992; Lesko, et al., 2008), this genre and methodology is relatively
new, thin, and not well developed, reflected, or articulated. I see several potential pitfalls in
this endeavor, some of which are related and some are not.
First is colonization of the analytic and descriptive discourse by a Great Narrative,
usually by a Great Narrative of redemption, moving the protagonist from initial naive and
arrogant failures to wise but painful realizations and successes (cf. McAdams, 2006). In my
view, it is important for the success of my inquiry that my narrative actively emerges from
and is firmly grounded in my analysis and story rather than pre-exists it (cf. Glaser and
Strauss, 1967, I have been inspired by grounded theory, but I did not follow its methodology
here, as I reject the notion of methodology per se).
Second is a danger to develop a patronizing and teleological relation between I-now
(Eugene Matusov, the writer and research), as an almighty and all-intelligent (e.g., genius,
profound, reflective, responsible, kind, sensitive, gentle, wise, good, creative) actor and
author, and me-then (Edward, the teacher), as an all-transparent, all-finalized, and all-limited
(e.g., stupid, naive, mean, misled, ignorant, arrogant, irresponsible, ill-intendant, narcissistic,
blind, shallow, dull) object of I-now‘s analysis. Based on the seminal, pathbreaking work by
Bakhtin on Dostoevsky‘s literature (Bakhtin, 1999), I think it is important to develop an
authorial dialogic relation between two constructed imaginary hero-characters and two hero-
authors: I-me-now and I-me-then who can address each other, disturbing the chronology of
the unfolding autobiographical time of the educationalist2. This dialogue is imaginary and not
real because I-then could not physically engage in a dialogue with I-now. However, certain
things can be revealed only through an imaginary story or dialogue – imaginary stories and
imaginary dialogues3 should become an important and legitimate part of the research mastery

2 By this term ―educationalist,‖ I mean the role duality of me-actor as a practicing educational researcher and as a
practicing educator with more than 20 years of teaching and research experience.
3 Cf. a long, rich, and productive history of use of imaginary experiments in physics.