Episode 9: Are the Teacher-Student Relationship and the Educational System in Conflict?

As a result of the mandates and policies set forth by the educational system, it can sometimes seem that teachers and systems are working against each other.  That isn’t necessarily true, though, as systems have a life of their own.  The mandates and policies set forth by the system take on their own power from their impersonal quality.  So, how can we work toward a discourse oriented toward understanding?  And how can we make sure that we reach mutual understanding with our students before we begin talking about the goals that the systemic policy has mandated that we achieve?  How can communicative education function in a policy and mandate-heavy system?

Episode 8: Is There Life in the Educational System? (Part 2)

Pardon our audio for this episode–technical difficulties.

In this episode, Shane and Greg continue to discuss the Habermas’s theory of communicative action as it deal with the relationship of the life world with the system world. We need systems. The discussion this week focuses on the transactions, policies, and mandates that take place in the educational system. There are obviously transactions facilitated by the educational system (through business offices, primarily), but the point of the educational system is not financial transaction. How can we keep students from reducing their educations from communicative interactions to facilitated transactions?

Episode 7: Is there life in the educational system?

A major theme in Habermas’s theory of communicative action is the complex relation of “system” and “lifeworld.” The interactions whereby persons achieve mutual understanding are enabled by the participants’ collections of cognitive schemata, emotional attitudes, and socially constituted norms and values. Habermas terms this largely unconscious background to communication the lifeworld (Lebenswelt). Social systems, like government, education, and the economic system, being abstract and impersonal, bypass communication and function by policy and mandates. However, systems are necessary in large, complex societies, and it would be an error to imagine that because human communication is “good,” systems are therefore bad. The challenge for educators, therefore, is to “find the lifeworld in the system” and let the system support, rather than threaten, the teacher-student relationship.

Episode 6: Can people thrive in a system?

Communication takes place only among persons.  But systems (like the education system) are abstract and impersonal.  Is it true, therefore, that because education is organized systemically, people cannot communicate within it?  And what about disruptions to communication–like plagiarism–that take place within the teacher-student relationship?

Episode 5: How Can Communicative Ed Help Meet Standards? Pt 2

Shane and Greg examine the “expected educational outcomes” of a particular college course and discuss whether such an outcome-oriented document is inherently inimical to the fostering of mutual understanding. Does the goal orientation of the educational system require a goal orientation of its participants?

Listen in as Greg and Shane bounce the topic back and forth by clicking below.

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Episode 4: How Can Communicative Ed Help Meet Standards? Pt 1

This week, Shane and Greg discuss the differences between goal-oriented/ strategic action and communicative action.  Can the educational enterprise work with only communicative action?  At some point, should the switch be made to goal-oriented action?  Shane and Greg discuss how a communicative theory of education can fit into a world/ system dominated by standards and measurable success.

Listen in as Greg and Shane bounce the topic back and forth by clicking below.

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Student Strife

If you rode the Podcast wave last week all the way to the bitter shore, you heard Greg making trumpet sounds with his mouth.  But you also heard a short story about a student who was unhappy with her grade.  Now, this is no new thing.  If you have been teaching for more than, I don’t know, a day, then someone in your class has probably expressed a dissatisfaction with your grading.

I like to think that I am a good communicator (especially since communication is at the heart of Communicative Education).  I rarely have this issue.  A few weeks ago, though, I received an e-mail that, in short, expressed a real distaste for how I had graded an in-class writing assignment.  I admit that this course has been a struggle from day one (this is my first semester teaching it), and maybe I didn’t clearly articulate the expectations of this particular assignment.  Since we had been working on the same concepts–subject/verb agreement and complete sentences–for something like 12 weeks, I thought that the expectations were clear.

1. Make your subjects and verbs agree
2. Make complete sentences

However, I realized that maybe I hadn’t been as clear as I could have been.  I offered to meet with the student during office hours to explain the rationale behind the grade (which did come with a rubric).  She didn’t come by for a few days, so I decided I would address it with the whole class.  I began to expect that she wasn’t the only one confused.  I walked into class with the rubric and had a short town-hall meeting.  I explained my rationale and let the students ask questions.  At the end of it all, everyone seemed pleased.

The student who had initially confronted me improved significantly on the next assignment.  I believe this to be a great example of what we’re trying to do here.  Last week, I asked Greg, “What are teachers supposed to be learning from students?” Well, this is it!  They will teach us how to be better teachers, if nothing else.  We just have to be willing to reach toward mutual understanding.

-Shane