Bringing the social into pedagogy: unsafe learning in an uncertain world

Abstract

The paper describes a collaborative curriculum development project implemented over 3 years at 2 universities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The project involved a short module in which students in their fourth year of study interacted and learnt collaboratively across the boundaries of institution, discipline, race and social class, about the concepts of community, self and identity. The pedagogic approach adopted is described, as well as the responses of the students, and a brief reflection on some of the learning outcomes attained. The paper considers the learning processes which the curriculum development team experienced, and suggests that in order to facilitate learning for an ‘uncertain world’, the curriculum designers, too, need to engage in learning processes in which they make themselves vulnerable, mirroring some of the learning processes they expect the students to undergo.

Keywords:

• uncertainty
• collaborative research
• pedagogy of discomfort
• boundary crossing

Notes

1. More information about the use of participatory action learning in the course can be found at Rohleder et al. (2008a) and Bozalek et al. (2008).

2. For more information about the references to space and neighbourhood, see Leibowitz et al. (2007) and Rohleder et al. (2008b).

3. The trainers were Ariella Friedman, Psychology Professor at Tel Aviv University and Ahmad Hijazi, Director of the School for Peace at Wahat al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom.