The Teaching Self as Productive Embodied Friction: An Account on the Integration between Contemplation and Anti-oppressive Education

Abstract

Education in recent years has witnessed an increasing involvement in the conversations regarding anti-oppressive practice and contemplation, particularly as foundations for pedagogy and curricular design. Naturally, both discourses have intersected with each other through the attempts at their integration, potentially leading toward new practices of enhanced educational impact. This chapter serves as a deliberate reflection and elaboration upon the nature and potential implications of their integration. As both discourses reflect valuable approaches and ideas, it is important to carefully examine and approach their integration to ensure that the value of each perspective is preserved as well as enriched in its power to educatively stimulate meaningful learning in the classroom. In order for such an educative situation to emerge, I argue that the integration should be defined by a sustained friction and differentiation between each perspective. By sustaining the friction, each perspective preserves their power to illuminate alternative possibilities in understanding the self and the world for the other. The educative value of such friction rests within its power to carry students onto a journey of continuous learning without settling upon finalized answers. Ultimately, I conclude that this friction is made possible and sustained by being embodied as the very self of the teacher.

Citation

Zhao, S. (2020), "The Teaching Self as Productive Embodied Friction: An Account on the Integration between Contemplation and Anti-oppressive Education", Ergas, O. and Ritter, J.K. (Ed.) Exploring Self Toward Expanding Teaching, Teacher Education and Practitioner Research (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 34), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 197-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720200000034012