An exploration of the use of disruption as a pedagogic intervention

Abstract

This article describes a journey of exploration in which I take a hitherto unexamined aspect of my teaching practice, the use of disruption, and subject it to interrogation. The journey is an exercise in auto‐ethnographic research in that I am my own subject, located within the context of the classroom. My purpose is to surface the beliefs that underpin this pedagogic strategy and to locate it within theories of teaching and learning in higher education, so that that which is known but not yet thought becomes available for reflection and challenge. The article is structured in such a way as to trace the thought processes that shaped the direction of the journey; it follows a logic dictated by the heuristics of recognition and association. Throughout the journey I draw on students’ reflective reports to illustrate my conclusions that disruption is a metaphorical strategy that uses associative logic to promote transformations in students’ underlying belief systems and is an artefact of a relativist ontology. It assumes a political stance about the challenging of power relationships and of collusion. I conclude by identifying some ethical issues that are raised by this teaching strategy. I highlight the importance of a relationship of trust between teacher and student that is based on a shared commitment to each other’s potentiality.

Keywords:

• disruption
• metaphor
• critical pedagogy
• higher education
• diversity