Physical education teaching as a caring act—techniques of bodily touch and the paradox of caring

ABSTRACT

In this article, we investigate ‘no touch policies’ as a practical teacher concern that includes the body as a location, a source and a means in educational activity. We argue that to understand issues regarding physical touch within school practice we must conceive it as deeply associated with specific teaching techniques. Thus, the didactical challenge is not found in argumentations about the pro and cons of physical touch, but through analysis of how teachers handle student interaction and teaching intentions.

We consider teaching as a caring profession. Caring, as a practical teacher concern, requires wisdom regarding the right time to use bodily touch and to refrain from such use. This wisdom involves the ability to discern people’s needs, desires, interests and purposes in particular situations and act appropriately. From a body pedagogical perspective we approach intergenerational touch not only as a discursive and power-related question but as an essential tension in the intersection of the; ambiguity attendant to any intentional act such as teaching, the conflict between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice, and finally, the paradox of caring.

We draw on interviews with PE-teachers in Swedish primary, secondary and upper-secondary schools and analyses of a collection of techniques of bodily touch that are established and practiced with specific pedagogical purposes. The results shows PE teacher’s competence in handling different functions of intergenerational touch in relation to three different techniques of bodily touch; (1) Security touch, which is characterized by intentions to handle the fragile; (2) Denoting touch, which is characterized by intentions to handle learning content and (3) Relational touch, which is characterized by caring intentions. Each of these is of importance for the teachers in carrying out their call to teach and each of these relies on professional assessments whether or not it meets its intended purpose.

KEYWORDS:

• Caring
• body pedagogics
• corporeal realism
• non-touch
• technique
• teaching intention

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of Sport, Education and Society for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Nor is it the assumption that the sciences and abstract reason alone is sufficient to govern human affairs. Furthermore, we do not assume the study of the discipline called “humanities” will automatically allow us to live more aesthetic, creative and moral lives. However, we do believe there are some basic needs that all humans share such as food, drink, companionship, physical as well as psychological well-being and security.

2. See Hansen (1995).

3. The reader that wishes to try this teaching activity for themselves should be sure to ask for a volunteer and to be very careful where and how they touch, or almost touch.

4. The project is funded by the Swedish National Centre for Research in Sports (CIF). See also Öhman and Grundberg Sandell (2015); Öhman and Quennerstedt (2015); Öhman (2016).

Additional information

Funding

The Swedish Research Council [grant number 2013-2200] funds this research and we would like to thank our colleagues in the international research project Teaching and Learning Practical Embodied Knowledge (TALPEK) at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, and the research group SMED (Studies of Meaning-making and Educational Discourses) for their helpful comments.