Meeting with the ‘Unfamiliar Other’ in multimodal education

ABSTRACT

The article reflects upon the possibility of educating sensitivity to the pain of the different Other by using feature cinema. The authors rely on the methodology suggested by Stanley Louis Cavell and Andrew Klevan, and also on the suggestions and conclusions by William B. Russell, III and Stewart Waters. The authors of this article reflected upon the results of their own interview with gymnasium students and selected three feature films suggested by them as a case study for the possibility of developing not only critical thinking but also sensitivity to the pain of the unfamiliar Other. All three movies concern the humiliation and pain of the African people. The article raises questions for possible discussion in ethics class and suggests philosophical literature by E. Fromm, and K.R. Popper as a possible theoretical basis: moving from the concrete ethical problem discerned in the movie to the philosophical text and vice versa.

KEYWORDS:

• Teaching with cinema
• unfamiliar Other
• Africa
• sensitivity to the pain
• genocide
• responsibility

Acknowledgments

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No S- MIP-17-37 and was performed in cooperation with Vilnius University Faculty of Philosophy.

Disclose statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The different aspects of multimodality in contemporary theories of education were discussed by Dawn D. Hassett and Jean Scott Curwood. The significance of multimodal education in early childhood was investigated by Marilyn J. Narey (Making Meaning: Constructing Multimodal Perspectives of Language Literacy and Learning through Art-based Early Childhood Education (2009)). The relations between multimodality and multilingualism in education were described by the professors from Luxemburg University Ingrid de Saint-Georges and Jean-Jacques Weber, also others who published in the book Multilingualism and Multimodality. Current Challenges for Education Studies (2013). Semiotic aspects of multimodality in education were analysed by Len Unsworth (Multimodal Semiotics. Functional Analysis in Context of Education, 2008).

2. John K. Gilbert, Miriam Reiner, Mary Nakhleh, Visualization; Theory and Practice in Science Education (2008); David Downing. Image and Ideology in Modern/Postmodern Discourse (1991); Jan Jagodiznski. Visual Arts and Education in an Era of Designer Capitalism. Deconstructing the Oral Eye. (2010),International Dialogues about Visual Culture, Education and Art, ed. Teresa Eca and Rachel Mason (2008), Robin Usher and Richard Edwards. Postmodernism and Education. Different Voices, Different Worlds; Social Theory and Education Research. Understanding Foucault, Habermas, Bourdieu and Derrida (2013). Margaret Walshaw. Working with Foucault in Education (2007); Ina Semetsky. Deleuze, Education and Becoming (2006); Jason J. Wallin. A Deleuzian Approach to Curriculum. Essays on a Pedagogical Life (2010); Jakub Zdebik. Deleuze and The Diagram. Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organisation (2012).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Research Council of Lithuania [Research Council of Lithuania under Grant No. S- MIP-17-37].