Learning in the presence of others: Using the body as a resource for teaching

Abstract

Many great cultures of the world have recognised the impossibility of teaching. Governments in various colonial countries continue to spend huge sums of money on ‘closing the gap’ in Indigenous education, yet national assessment figures would support the claim that teaching is indeed an impossibility. This paper draws on some of Biesta’s recent theorisation to highlight the double impossibility of teaching in Indigenous education. While representation and miscommunication surely make teaching an impossible profession, I nevertheless return to the question, what is possible in education? I apply the more recent work of Butler to highlight how vulnerability can allow us to hear the story of others. Vulnerability allows us into the lives of others, and to recognise that they are already implicated in ours, noting that certain bonds are actually shaped through the reversibility of the story. I examine a presentation to teacher education students on the Stolen Generations as a means of understanding how the role of power in constituting body vulnerability can be leveraged in the curriculum beyond the discourse of independent and self-motivated learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Vulnerability
• body
• narrative
• reversibility
• bond
• power

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people who read drafts of this article: Susan Taylor, Michael Cavanagh, Mary Ryan, Bill Green.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Neil Harrison

Neil Harrison is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He is currently analysing approaches to embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in teacher education programs in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. He is also developing a trauma informed pedagogy for teachers in schools and universities. In 2017, he received an Australian Government citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, and in 2015 he received the Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. His latest book (together with Juanita Sellwood), Learning and Teaching in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education (Oxford) is used widely in teacher education programs throughout Australia.