Interpretation, teaching and rationality

Abstract

That processes of interpretation are unavoidable in any educational experience has not received serious attention in teaching and teacher education. One of the authors devised an exercise for her graduate class to help them understand practical aspects of hermeneutic theory in connection with rationality, truth and the nature of teaching and learning. The three co‐authors, each from a different cultural background, monitored and described their experiences of this exercise in order to explore the role of interpretation in teaching and learning. The students' interpretive activity was found to link subject matter to their past experience, reconstructing both. This process is described in detail and it is suggested that curricular spaces for interpretation be deliberately incorporated into teaching and learning situations.

Le fait que des processus d'interprétation sont inévitables dans des expériences éducationnelles n'a pas reçu d'attention sérieuse en enseignement ou en enseignement pédagogique. Un des auteurs a conçu un exercice pour aider sa classe graduée à comprendre les aspects pratiques de la théorie ‘hermeneutique’ par rapport à la rationalité, la vérité et la nature de l'enseignement et de l'apprentissage. Les trois co‐auteurs, provenant chacun d'une culture différente, analysent et décrivent leurs expériences de cet exercice a fin d'explorer le rôle de l'interprétation dans l'enseignement et l'apprentissage. L'activité interprétative des étudiants a démontré une tendance à lier les thèmes à leur expérience antérieure, reconstruisant tous les deux. Ce processus est décrit en détail et il est suggéré que des espaces curriculaires pour l'interprétation soient incorporés aux situations d'enseignement et d'apprentissage.

Los procesos de interpretación son inevitables en cualquier experiencia educativa que no ha recibido la debida atención, en la educación de la enseñanza y la educación pedagógica. Una de los autores ideó un ejercicio para que a su clase de graduados les ayude a entender aspectos prácticos de la teoría "hermeneutic" en conexión con la racionalidad, la verdad y la naturaleza de la enseñanza y el aprender. Las tres co‐autores, cada una de un diverso fondo cultural, analizan y describen sus experiencias de este ejercicio para explorar el papel de la interpretación en la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. La actividad interpretativa de los estudiantes demostró un enlace del tema con sus experiencias previas, reconstruyendo ambos. Este proceso se describe detalladamente y se sugiere que los espacios curriculares para la interpretación estén incorporados deliberadamente en situaciones de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje.

Dass in jeder erzieherischen Erfahrung Interpretationsvorgange unumgänglich sind, auch im Bereich des Lehrens und der Lehrerbildung,, erhielt noch keine ernste Beachtung. Eine der Autorinnen entwickelte eine Aufgabe fur ihre “graduate students” um ihnen praktische Aspekte der Hermeneutic verstandlich zu machen, besonders in bezug auf Rationalitat, Wahrheit , und die Art des Lernens und Lehrens. Ihre Co‐autorinnen, jede aus einem anderen Herkunftsland, beobachten und beschreiben ihre Erlebnisse mit dieser Aufgabe, um,die Rolle der Interpretation im Lehren und Lernen zu erforschen. Es war zu ersehen, dass die Interpretationstatigkeit dieser Studentinnen eine Verbindung herstellte zwischen Lehrinhalt und vergangenen Erfahrungen, und zugleich auch beide Bereiche rekonstruierte. Dieser Prozess ist im Detail dargestellt, und es wird vorgeschlagen, curiculare Freiraume fur Interpretationsprozesse zu schaffen und diese ganz bewusst in Lehr‐und Lernsituationen zu integrieren.

Notes

1. This article has a first author and three co‐authors. The first author's voice carries most sections of this paper, which was also largely written by her. However, key content of the article was generated by the co‐authors and all interpretations have been thoroughly discussed and approved by them.

2. Constructivism as a metaphor for learning has become ‘the most favored current view of learning and teaching in the teacher education literature (Fox, 2001, p. 24). Its proponents consider knowledge to be socially and individually constructed by students who actively participate in the process. Activity here generally implies conscious and intentional engagement (Kivinen & Ristela, 2003, p. 364) rather than the subconscious activation of tacit knowing that concerns us in this paper.

3. While the idea that all aspects of curriculum may be imbued with interpretation seems not to have been given serious consideration by practitioners and those that construct curricula, proposals that understanding be the goal of instruction have. Egan (1997) distinguished between different types of understanding and proposed that each of these should be given greater prominence at different stages in a student's life in school. During the 1990s many teachers, in collaboration with the Teaching for Understanding Project at Harvard Graduate School of Education, chose understanding as their goal of instruction and had their students carry out a variety of actions to ensure and demonstrate their growing understanding of the subject matter (Gardner & Boix–Manisilla, 1994). Others also made that distinction: ‘Understanding is … to grasp, to hear, get, catch, or comprehend the meaning of something. To know is to signal that one … can demonstrate, show, or clearly prove or support a claim’ (Schwandt, 2002, p. 78). Whether we go after knowing or understanding also implies different conceptions of truth. Understanding seeks the best account possible of what something means and is disclosed through competing interpretations (Schwandt, 2002, p. 80). The truth envisaged here is ‘not the one expressible in propositions that abstract from the meanings of actions and utterances in the everyday world and that take the form of an absolute account of reality’ (Smith; cited in Schwandt, 2002, p. 80). It does not have a sense of mastery and control over the subject matter or phenomena in the world nor is it guaranteed by foolproof methods of inquiry.

4. I have also taken some of the imagery from reading theorists such as Iser (1974), who maintained that the journey into a virtual world is created jointly by the thing itself and by what the interpreter brings to the journey.

5. Chao is a research assistant on my current project, which has participants on several continents.