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 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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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

Episode 2: What is the Teacher-Student Relationship?

Virtually all of the available literature regards the concept of a teacher-student relationship as healthy and even indispensable for the educational enterprise. Anecdotally, however, many teachers resist the term “relationship” as excessively intimate and transgressive of personal boundaries. Similarly, popular culture harbors great concern about the potential for inappropriate, abusive behavior on the part of teachers. Freire’s “banking” model of pedagogy presents another critique of a teacher-student relationship. Nevertheless, analogy with other professional-to-non-professional relationships like those of doctor-patient and lawyer-client imply that even persons playing differing roles can reach mutual understanding. The public, professional context of education puts great stress on the subjective dimension of sincerity and the ethical dimension of non-coercion. We will pick up the story here next time.

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

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Teacher-Student Relationship Poll

Hello!

Greg and I are anxiously preparing for this week’s podcast, which means that I still need to read Chapter 2 of Pedagogy of the Oppressed.  I will get to that soon!  However, between now and Friday’s recording of this week’s podcast, take a second to answer this quick poll.  Trust me, I know that this is an over-simplification of the issue.  If you have any real issues with the poll, Tweet it at us (@CommunicativeEd) or drop some love/ hate in the comments!

Talk to you soon!

-Shane

Episode 1: What is Communication?

As educators, the challenges that we face seem endless.  From meeting the expectations outlined for us in performance standards to finding the time for our own professional development, it seems easy to lose focus on the more human aspects of our profession.  However, the interaction that accompanies education is a primary reason that many of us chose to go  down this road.  Therefore, it seems to go without saying that effective communication is the fulcrum of meaningful academic endeavors. According to Jürgen Habermas, real communication is what happens to two parties reach a mutual understanding.  This week, we begin our discussion trying to elaborate on that question: What is communication?  We start with Habermas’s definition and begin moving toward an understanding of his theory of Communicative Action as it relates to education.

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

To subscribe to the bi-weekly podcast, click below.