Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 1; January 2000
"Telling teaching column #2"
Donald Freeman
Preconceptions are the building blocks of emic thinking and perception. They are the categories that we use to make sense of our world, to label the way things are supposed to be. Challenging preconceptions involves seeing differently. When my seat mates and I heard the pilot's voice, her words-- and the fact of the woman saying-- raised our preconceptions in different ways. In the classroom, it means being methodical about how you investigate, see, and listen to the teaching and learning around you. In others words, you need to see your own work from the outside in. In an interview, choreographer and film-maker Meredith Monk and choreographer Merce Cunningham talk about this second kind of seeing in the world of dance. They talk about ways they 'keep going and creatively renew' themselves, and both agree that movies and photography are invaluable. As Cunningham says, "When I started working with a camera, I was absolutely amazed."
Monk: It's a different syntax, a different language.
Cunningham: And it gives you new ideas about what to put in the [dance] technique, about speed, about sudden changes of angles. You need [these things] for camera work, I think, because a small shift is so visible, but on the stage it would not be visible.
When I first worked with a camera, I kept seeing something that didn't look right. Then, I'd look at [the same movement] on stage, and it seemed fine. I'd go back, and finally I realized one of the dancers had her foot this way while the others were that way. At first you can't figure out what you're seeing. So you look again. It makes you rethink, open your mind.
Monk: Do you read at all?
Cunningham: Yes, but mostly I draw. I love drawing. I draw animals, flowers, anything I can look at. It's the most extraordinary way to get out of yourself, because you suddenly realize how stupid you are, how you don't see.
Cunningham talks about how working with a different form of discipline-- in his case, filming or drawing instead of dancing-- 'makes you rethink, open your mind, [and] suddenly realize how stupid you are, how you don't see.' As a choreographer, Cunningham is familiar with the world of movement in one way; by doing something differently, using a camera or drawing, he forces himself to engage with this familiarity in a new way. The same is true, I think, in seeing your own teaching. You are, as the teacher, quite familiar with the world of classroom, your students, and your subject-matter. Gathering information and assessing it pushes you to engage with these things differently, and thus, potentially, to see them differently. In my third column, I'd like to look at how this might be done.
REFERENCES
If you want to go further with the ideas I have written about, I'd suggest the following references.
Freeman, D. (1996). "Redefining the relationship between research and what teachers know" In K. Bailey & D. Nunan (eds). Voices from the language classroom. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 88-115.
• In this chapter, I talk about three different views of how knowledge works in teaching. It provides an overview of where seeing teaching fits.
Monk, M. (1997). "Cunningham and the Freedom in Precision". New York Times, The New Season/ Dance. Sunday, September 7, 1997. pp. 13; 35.
• If you can get ahold to the full interview, it is fascinating and worth reading.
Shulman. L. (1988). "The disciplines of inquiry in education: an overview." In R. Jager. (ed). Complementary methods of research in education. Washington DC: American Educational Research Association. pp. 3-18.
• This essay is a classic which frames the whole idea of research in education. It is fair-reaching and very readable.
