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Teaching as Attention Formation: A Relational Approach to Teaching and Attention
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The purpose of the thesis is to put forth and explore a notion of teaching as a practice of attention formation. Drawing on educational philosophy and the Didaktik/Pädagogik-traditions, teaching is explored as a relational and lived-though practice that can promote, form, and share attention. In the context of teaching, attention is connected to the acts of showing and observing. As such, teaching can be seen as a complex of relations that emerges through the intersection of the intentions of the one who is showing and the one who is observing. This intersection creates a tension between the self-active student and the paths made possible for this self-activity. The pedagogical dimension of this tension can be expressed through the principles of the summons to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. By turning to some key-texts of the French philosopher Jacques Rancière, I explore how the notion of teaching as attention formation can be understood from within a radical relational perspective on education and also how attention itself can be thought of as an educational phenomenon. From this critical relational perspective, where the relation is seen as constitutive of educational situations and where the possibility for uniqueness, difference, and freedom are regarded as central characteristics for a democratic conception (and ethical realization) of education, I interpret Rancière’s notions of intellectual emancipation and partage du sensible as political/aesthetic analogues to the summons to self-activity and Bildsamkeit, respectively. While the event of intellectual emancipation, although constituted relationally, mainly addresses the unique attentive subject, the notion of le partage du sensible draws attention to the larger and shared context in which this event takes place. In the thesis, teaching as attention formation is addressed as a relational phenomenon in which the unique and irreplaceable subject is called into being and is given space to respond to the summons of the surrounding world and to strive against the materiality of that very same world. It is suggested that attention formation might be the educational event when someone, as a unique other, is called into presence and is given room to claim and to speak for his or her interest. It is an event made possible by those teachers who have the sensibility to discover its coming, the courage to let it happen, and the strength to accept the consequences of it.
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... I flera studier med den inriktningen uppmärksammas hur undervisningens kvalitét många gånger avgörs av lärarens förmåga att momentant men ändå reflexivt hantera mångfalden och samtidigheten av formella såväl som etiskt komplexa och flerdimensionella avgöranden i sin undervisning. I studierna framkommer en komplex och mångtydig bild av läraridentiteten där handlandet och reflektioner många gånger uppfattas som ambivalent och situationsbundet (Florin Sädbom, 2015;Högberg, 2015;Lilja, 2013;Ljungblad, 2016;Rinne, 2015;Rytzler, 2017;Segolsson, 2011). Hur läraren tänker och handlar i och inför undervisningen beskrivs också många gånger utifrån implicita, traditionsförmedlade och erfarenhetsbaserade modeller för undervisning och lärande (Colnerud & Granström, 2015;Lindqvist & Nordänger, 2007;Tjärnstig, 2020). ...
... Här menar jag att begrepp, perspektiv och praktiker ur en bildningsorienterad didaktiktradition kan bidra till att fylla detta tomrum. I flera av studierna används också eller refereras till klassiska allmändidaktiska begrepp som exempelvis pedagogisk takt och uppfordran till självverksamhet (2018; Frelin, 2012;Högberg, 2015;Lilja, 2013;Ljungblad, 2016;Rinne, 2015;Rytzler, 2017;Segolsson, 2011). I studierna framkommer att medvetenheten och kunskapen om den kontinentala didaktiktraditionen lever i Sverige, även om den för en relativt undanskymd tillvaro (Bengtsson, 1997;Wahlström, 2015). ...
... Pedagogisk takt kan därför direkt kopplas till lärarens avläsningskunskap: en uppövad och intuitiv förmåga att momentant avläsa och uppfatta nyanser och subtila skeenden hos enskilda elever och i klassrummet (se Tjärnstig, 2020;Wedin, 2007). I några svenska studier har taktbegreppet använts i samband med analys och beskrivning av lärarens handlande och förhållningssätt i undervisningen (2018; Holmgren, 2006;Högberg, 2015;Lilja, 2013;Ljungblad, 2016;Magnusson, 1998;Rinne, 2015;Rytzler, 2017;Segolsson, 2011;Tjärnstig, 2020). Taktbegreppet har i dessa studier både uppmärksammats teoretiskt och av vissa även använts analytiskt. ...
Kan element ur en kontinental tradition av bildningsorienterad didaktik få betydelse i svensk skola för att stärka undervisningens kvalité och lärarnas professionella autonomi? I artikeln argumenteras för en didaktisk princip där lärarens reflektioner kring undervisningens praxis ges rumsliga, etiska och existentiella dimensioner. Artikel bygger på idén om undervisningen som iscensättning ett didaktiskt rum, i vilket läraren skapar tid och förutsättningar för elevernas självbildning. Texten tar avstamp i Hopmans ide´ om ”återhållen undervisning”. Genom återhållen undervisning upprättas en åtskillnad mellan lärarens undervisning och elevens lärande och självbildning. Åtskillnaden möjliggör också ett autonomt professionellt utrymme för lärarens reflektioner och didaktiska handlande. I artikel återförs didaktiken på kontinental tradition av bildningsorienterad didaktik. Med utgångpunkt hos Herbart utvecklas begreppen bildsamhet, uppfordran till självverksamhet och pedagogisk takt. Den didaktiska traditionens begrepp placeras i ett nutida utbildningsfilosofiskt sammanhang genom genomlysning utifrån Gert Biestas idé om att skolans utbildning bör inbegripa både kvalificerade såväl som subjektiverande och socialiserande dimensioner. Avslutningsvis argumenteras för allmändidaktiken som kärnan i lärarens professionskunskap och hur principen om bildning upprättar ett professionellt utrymme som öppnar upp för praktiknära didaktisk forskning.
... A democratic realization of education is predicated upon teachers with the ability to attend to the unforeseeable and unique events of teaching and to acknowledge them as an integral part of life in the classroom (Rancière 1991;Rytzler 2017). In this article, I explore this attention to and affirmation of educational events within the classroom as a specific aesthetic ability and a sensibility that are part of teachers' embodied knowledge and understanding of their own practice. ...
... In all encounters with the unknown, there are educational potentials, ready to be discovered if we are attuned to them. This attunement is an attending to the attending itself or, rather, an awakening to the presence of the other (Rytzler 2017: 83)-in other words, a specific educational listening and, as I propose, the product of an educational musicality. According to Velasco-Pufleau (2019), listening should be approached as a construction of the commons, as it functions as an inscription in a common space. ...
While the aesthetics of Rancière is a well-explored topic, there has been something missing from the reception of his works, and that is the relation between Rancière’s aesthetics and music. However, in recent years an interest in this relation has resulted in several academic contributions, which is sign enough that there is in fact a musical element in his works. Rancière himself, in response to this reception, has acknowledged as much. Music is a human form of expression that uses the physicality of air to produce vibrations that encounter and resonate with the human body. Musicality is the ability to attend to such vibrations and harness the expectations and surprises that they bring about. In this article, I explore how a musical approach to Rancière’s writings can inform educational philosophy, especially as regards the practice of teaching. Particular attention is paid to his notion of the sensorium as a sensible realm where we experience and encounter difference and otherness, in political events as well as in teaching situations. Attending ethically to these situations is predicated on a certain sensibility that involves certain aesthetic qualities. In this article, I explore this sensibility as a particular educational musicality. Drawing from educational philosophy, the aesthetic theory of Jacques Rancière, and music philosophy, I connect this musicality of teaching to an ability to navigate in an ethical space that comes to life through a material/sensible community of interests formed in teaching practice. I use the term acousmatic experience as an explorative device in an attempt to depict teaching practice as something that can bring about a specific educational sensorium.
... Begreppet uppmärksamhet har använts inom såväl filosofisk, psykologisk och pedagogisk teoribildning, men då utifrån olika definitioner och olika analytiska nivåer (Rytzler, 2017). I föreliggande studie fokuseras i första hand begreppets koppling till lärares yrkeskunnande. ...
... Begreppet uppmärksamhet kan på olika sätt användas för att diskutera relevanta pedagogiska teman i samtiden (Rytzler, 2017). I denna artikel har det i första hand kopplats till fritidshemslärares yrkeskunnande inom ramen för den "situationsstyrda undervisning" som forskningen pekat på föreligger i fritidshemmen. ...
School-age educare (fritidshem) was included in the Swedish education act in 2010 and received its own section in the national curriculum in 2016. From that point on, teaching in school-age educare was also linked to predefined core contents and abilities that the pupils are supposed to develop. At the same time, the curriculum states that teaching in school-age educare is to be based on “the pupils’ needs, interests and experiences”. In the article, this duality is discussed in relation to empirical findings from school-age educare teachers. The teachers describe situations when they pay attention to pupils’ doing and saying, and how this is transformed into teaching purposes. The findings are related to the concept of “phronesis”, while the teachers’ attention gets a significant meaning through that concept. Moreover, the findings indicate that “episteme knowledge” also needs to be emphasized in this form of student-centered education, as something necessary for school-age educare teachers to know.
... I det här sammanhanget vill jag dock inte diskutera lämplig etikettering av sådana händelser, utan snarare analysera dem med hjälp av begreppet uppmärksamhet vilket är ett begrepp som ibland används för att analysera pedagogiska verksamheter (Biesta, 2021;Lee, 2021;Rytzler, 2017). Elevens upptäckt av blåsipporna, och lärarens respons på denna upptäckt, resulterar i en gemensam uppmärksamhet (joint attention, jfr Citton, 2017). ...
... Från och med årskurs 1 finns det numera kunskapskrav att nå för eleverna i skolan, och redan i förskoleklassen görs en kartläggning av varje elevs kunskapsutveckling, som en indikation på om eleven kommer nå målen i årskurs ett eller inte. Sådana skilda villkor ger svar på hur just fritidshemmets "attention formation" (Rytzler, 2017) kan bidra till en sorts relationella praktiker eller undervisningspraktiker, som många gånger kan skilja sig från de praktiker som uppstår i skolan. ...
Fritidshemmets förutsättningar har förändrats på många sätt sedan det moderna fritidshemmet skapades för ungefär 60 år sedan. Tanken med det här kapitlet är inte att i detalj beskriva dessa förändringar utan att inledningsvis mer översiktligt beskriva några av dem. Därefter följer kapitlets huvudsakliga målsättning, att beskriva och diskutera några exempel på verktyg som kan användas för att utveckla fritidshemmets innehåll och elevernas utveckling. Verktygens användning kan ses som möjligheter att komplettera gällande styrdokument i samklang med samhällets och fritidshemmets förändringar. På så vis tydliggörs även några av intentionerna med det genomförda Ifous-programmet; att bidra både med forskning om fritidshemmet och att bidra till att det pågående arbetet i fritidshem utvecklas. Kapitlet avslutas med en diskussion som berör styrdokumentens betydelse för fritidshemmets innehåll genom att beskriva olika scenarion och hur dessa scenarion även påverkar utformningen av de verktyg som används.
... Esta comprensión de la educación y la improvisación es en cierto modo problemática y corre el riesgo de reducir la improvisación a un método de enseñanza, en lugar de a algo de mayor importancia educativa. Puesto que la improvisación se entiende principalmente desde el punto de vista estético, nos gustaría dejar claro que la estética y la política están conectadas muy estrechamente entre sí, y que esta conexión implica una comprensión democrática de la educación y la enseñanza (McGuirk, 2021;Rancière, 2006;Rytzler, 2017Rytzler, , 2021Säfström, 2014). En este artículo tratamos de discutir específicamente el sentido, la importancia y la centralidad de la improvisación para las prácticas de enseñanza democráticas y su papel fundamental en la educación pública (véase p. ej. ...
In this article, we discuss the centrality of improvisation for teaching, based particularly on readings of Cassin (2014, 2020), Rancière (1991, 1999, 2013, 2020), and Bailey (1992). Our starting point is that there simply can be no teaching without improvisation, i.e., the delicate practice of responding to, situating, and attuning to events within educational encounters that cannot be foreseen, but constantly call for attention and action through the finest virtue of our intellect at play. In the article, we go along with the early Sophists for whom improvisation meant to be able to speak about everything by allowing oneself to be led by opportunity (Cassin 2014). We will be claiming that improvisation of the sophist teacher is both an intellectual and bodily virtue, requiring discipline as well as poêsis and technê as well as praxis. In short, improvisation as a specific form of educational performativity. Together with Rancière (1991, 2020), diPiero (2020), and Bailey (1992) we intend to show how improvisation in teaching speaks to our senses and sets into motion simultaneously the sharing and uniqueness of sensing as such, captured by Rancière’s understanding of le partage du sensible. Improvisation, we conclude, can be understood as the product of contingent encounters between subjects, objects, and environments, where it emerges in the rupture between form and content (diPiero 2020). As such, it allows for other ways of speaking and being in the world than those desired by the institutionalisation of a certain police orderand therefore becomes, we suggest, a central element in a democratic realization of the teaching practice.
... This understanding of education and improvisation is somewhat problematic, and risks reducing improvisation into a method for teaching rather than something of further educational importance. As improvisation mostly is understood from aesthetic points of view, we would like to make clear that aesthetics and politics are very closely connected, and that this connection has bearing on a democratic understanding of education and teaching (McGuirk, 2021;Rancière, 2006;Rytzler, 2017Rytzler, , 2021Säfström, 2014). ...
... The general point I wish to make here is that we can assume that teachers engage in acts of pointing in order to focus the attention of students on something worthwhile, with the hope and expectation that this will contribute to how students will direct their own attention in the future. This formal conception of teaching thus suggests that the overall ambition of teaching so conceived is not just to engage in attention (re)direction but, through this, also to engage in attention formation (on the latter idea see Rytzler, 2017). ...
This chapter provides an outline of a theory of teaching through a discussion of three questions: what teaching is, what it is for and how it works. I discuss two popular myths about teaching: that teaching is outdated and that teachers should rather focus on supporting students’ learning, and that teaching is the most important factor in the production of measurable learning outcomes. Both views see teaching as a form of control, which is either rejected or embraced. The theory of teaching I outline, sees teaching as an act of communication which seeks to focus the attention of students, without assuming that such attention or what students do with it can be or should be entirely controlled. The purpose of teaching is to contribute to students’ qualification, socialisation, and their existence as responsible subjects of their own lives. Teaching requires structure and direction, but too much structure and direction turns teaching into indoctrination. Teachers need the ability to make situation-specific judgements about how to act and what to act for, which requires artistry or craftsmanship. Attempts to turn teaching into an evidence-based profession not just undermine teachers’ professionalism but also misrepresent what teaching is and ought to be about.
In this chapter, I discuss what makes it possible for the political problem of inequality to be understood as a pathology of the individual and as a failure of that individual to live up to the institution’s expectations. Secondly, rather than treating failure as a pathology of the individual, I understand failure as discursively formed as an anomaly within educational thought itself. It is an anomaly since it is performatively produced by a particular understanding of education’s role in reproducing a population segment’s power in any given state or nation. In this chapter I call this understanding Platonian/Aristotelian education since such education relies on an ontology of inequality, which will be thoroughly explored in the following chapters. Thirdly, I embrace school failure as a refusal to accept institutionalised inequality as a necessity, conditioning relations between people, and instead, understand failure as pointing to the equality of all speaking beings and as conditional for education and a democratic way of life.
This conceptual chapter re-actualizes the Didaktik-inspired discussions in entrepreneurship education, initiated by Kyrö, Blenker et al., and Bechard and Toulouse over 15 years ago. Didaktik in the German educational tradition is a pedagogical sub-discipline which, unlike the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” as teaching methods, focuses on the relations between the subject,teacher, and students, and considers questions regarding what to teach, how to teach, and why, as being interdependent. A review of literature on entrepreneurship education published in the last decades shows that research in the German Didaktik tradition is sparse, and that the awareness of the differences between Didaktik and “didactics” has been overlooked. This chapter has practical implications for entrepreneurship educators as it presents Didaktik as an approach which comprises planning, implementing, and evaluating teaching in a way that includes an awareness of the learners’ relationship to the subject without excluding the teacher’s key role in education. In a theoretical perspective, the chapter challenges the Anglo-American understanding of “didactics” and proposes Didaktik as an approach to developing entrepreneurship education research and practice to be scientifically based in two fields and encompass transformative learning and critical perspectives, rather than being driven by political agendas and focusing on results.
This open access book seeks to create a forum for discussing key questions regarding theories on teaching: Which theories of teaching do we have? What are their attributes? What do they contain? How are they generated? How context-sensitive and content-specific do they need to be? Is it possible or even desirable to develop a comprehensive theory of teaching? The book identifies areas of convergence and divergence among the answers to these questions by prominent international scholars in research on teaching. Initiating exchanges among the authors, it then evaluates whether consensus can be reached on the areas of divergence. The book concludes by discussing lessons learned from this endeavor and outlines steps that need to be taken for advancing future work on theorizing teaching. As such, the book is aimed at readers interested in an overview of the theorizing of teaching and key open questions that, if addressed, help to move the field forward.
"How, they ask, is a thing like the equality of intelligence thinkable? And how could this opinion be established without disrupting the social order? We must ask the opposite question: how is intelligence possible without equality?"-Jacques Rancière
This study investigates what preschool staff include in the technology subject in preschool education, what content they view as relevant and how the teaching of this content can be organized. This is motivated by the fact that technology as subject have not been clearly defined, leaving the teachers insecureand unconfident about what to teach and how to teach it. In addition, preschool do not have a tradition of addressing teaching and learning the way they are now obliged to do according to the curriculum and many studies have shown subject teaching to be a challenge in preschool. Thus, the preschool staff’s
challenge is twofold regarding the teaching of technology. The aim is addressed by a mixed methods design, starting with questionnaires
and followed by interviews with preschool staff (daycare attendants and preschool teachers). The questionnaire was completed by 102 preschool staff members and interviews were held with seven of these participants. A key results is that technology in preschool involves building and creating. Emphasized is that children should be offered much and varied materials and that it should be available in the environment and inspire creative activities. Another key result is that every-day use of artifacts is viewed as part oftechnology education. Children should learn to handle artifacts by using them,
e.g. pulling up the zipper to close the jacket or cut with scissors. These are activities preschool have always engaged children in, which the staff now name technology. However, there are variations in the result and there are preschool staff members who express a more conscious teaching where children are able to learn about things like the purpose of technology, what parts an object consist of and how these parts are connected, and about technological systems, e.g. how the water get from the lake to the tap and how it is purified on the way. But there are also examples where technology activities are used as a means for working towards the striving goals of other areas, such as
math, science and social behavior. Implications are that preschool staff need to develop their teaching in order to work in accordance with the curriculum. A relevant first step is to strengthen their content competence in technology, but also, they need tools for how to teach subject matter like technology in a practice characterized by children’s own choice and influence.
This innovative book examines the aesthetic event of education. Extending beyond the pedagogy of art or art appreciation, Tyson E. Lewis takes a much broader view of aesthetics and argues that teaching and learning are themselves aesthetic performances. As Jacques Ranciere has recently argued, there is an inherent connection between aesthetics and politics, both of which disrupt conventional distributions of who can speak and think. Here, Lewis extends Ranciere’s general thesis to examine how there is not only an aesthetics of politics but also an aesthetics of education. In particular, Lewis’ analysis focuses on several questions: What are the possibilities and limitations of building analogies between teachers and artists, education and specific aesthetic forms? What is the relationship between democracy and aesthetic sensibilities? Lewis examines these questions by juxtaposing Ranciere’s work on universal teaching, democracy, and aesthetics with Paulo Freire’s work on critical pedagogy, freedom, and literacy. The result is an extension and problematization of Ranciere’s project as well as a new appreciation for the largely ignored aesthetic dimension of Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed.
Didaktik betyder undervisningslära. Didaktiken belyser undervisningens och lärandets historia och aktuella förutsättningar genom att analysera innehållet i dessa aktiviteter. Med innehåll avses främst det kunskapsinnehåll som skola och universitet förmedlar, men också de föreställningar om människan och hennes relation till sig själv, till sin omvärld som följer av ett bestämt kunskapsinnehåll. Didaktiken som forskningsfält omfattar alltså inte bara skolan som institution. den behandlar också kunskapens och lärandets värdemässiga förutsättningar och konsekvenser, i all de sammanhang där pedagogiska och allmänt undervisande och fostrande aktiviteter äger rum. Denna bok innehåller ett antal historiska, teoretiska och praktiska perspektiv, samt problemområden och begrepp inom didaktiken, behandlade med kunskapssociologi, läroplansteori och pragmatism som inspirationskällor. Ambitionen är bl a att bidra till utvecklandet av ett yrkesspråk för läraren som är grundat i den specifika typ av erfarenhet som i ett av kapitlen kallas praktisk vetenskaplighet.
I denna bok utgör utbildningens och undervisningens etiska aspekter utgångspunkt snarare än frågor om kunskap. Speciellt undersöks moralens möjligheter i utbildning och undervisning genom att man studerar begrepp som socialisation, politik, rättvisa och demokrati. Detta görs genom att man vänder begreppen mot sig själva och frågar sig: Hur demokratisk är demokratin? Hur rättvis är rättvisan? Till vilken grad ger utbildning och undervisning oss möjligheten att framträda i vår ursprungliga "socialite", dvs. framträda som moraliska subject?
Denna typ av fr[gor ar viktiga att ställa inom utbildning och undervisning, eftersom en s[dan verksamhet i allt for hug grad associeras med att fyra in individer i redan etablerade föreställningar om vilka som tillhör den givna gemenskapen. För att individen skall ges möjlighet att ingå i gemenskapen skall hon bli såsom "vi" redan är. ett sådant förhållningssätt kräver i allt väsentligt av individen att vara densamma som all andra. Författaren ger ett alternativt svar på vad utbildning och undervisning kan vara, ett svar som tar sin utgångspunkt i mötet med någon som inte är densamma som jag – i skillnadens pedagogik.
In the paper I intend to explore the formation of attention as a significant characteristic of educational relations. The task is to show how attention can be understood from the intergenerational and interpersonal traits of education itself. This will be done through a discussion where the two principles Aufforderung zur Selbsttätigkeit and Bildsamkeit will be explored in relation to a notion of education as attention formation. By investigating the relation between both principles the paper further explores how Benner’s claim will affect the way attention is understood as an educational phenomenon.
Kan en undervisning byggd på vittnesmål som vittnar om historiska sår bidra till att rätta det orätta? Det omöjliga vittnandet undersöker vad det finns för pedagogiska möjligheter i vittnandet och i vittnesmålet genom en filosofisk utredning av olika aspekter, närmare bestämt representation, subjektivitet och känslor. Det är en filosofisk studie som utgår från Giorgio Agamben, men också från The Latina Feminist Group, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Sara Ahmed och Eduardo Glissant. Vad har vittnesmålet för pedagogiska möjligheter att förändra nuet? På vilket sätt kan vittnandet möjliggöra processer av subjektivitet? Vad kan känslorna göra i mötet med vittnesmål?
Det omöjliga vittnandet är en omarbetad version, med samma namn, av Marie Hållanders avhandling i pedagogik (2016).