Fwd: emotional bonds/education

dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca,
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 08:01:01 -0700

Hi folks - for some reason my mail is not going through to the list...
mebbe there's glitch with my address? How can I find out?

In the meantime, I've been trying to send the following for a few days:

this is in response to the coaching metaphor,
re emotional attachments in educative relations:

>>Hm ya hm I've been thinking about Peter's coaching metaphors
>>and they
>>
>>actually help to fill out the field of "educative relations", so to
>speak,
>>with a glimpse of the _continuum_ involved.
>>
>>what we might be talking about, in emotional bonds and education, more
>>generally,
>>
>>is the relation between a subordinate (student, player, trainee,
>>apprentice, etc) and an authority figure (teacher, coach, trainer,
>master,
>>etc);
>>
>>and there is a fantastic vulnerability in this relationship, of course.
>>
>>certainly,
>>
>>this relation between subordinates & authorities manifests differently
>in
>>contexts of gender-relations, class-relations, race-relations, and so
>on.
>>
>>Boys will bond with the coach (father) who is not expected to "nurture"
>>but to train these boys to be "men", which transports a barrage of
>>hegemonic baggage into the relation, but which doesn't alter the
>internal
>>dynamic of attachment and identification. And as Kathie pointed out,
>women
>>in these positions are impossibly positoned as the "destructive
>nurturer",
>>fine for little kids but when the young folks need more intelligent
>>guidance, gender privilege takes over.
>>
>>Whether one is treated "well," or "poorly", by the authority in this
>>relation, there is a underlying connection, transference, which
>>rationalizes the relation.
>>Shoshana Felman's book ("Jacques Lacan and the Adventure of Insight:
>>Psychoanalysis in Contemporary Culture")
>>
>>speaks on this.
>>So a person may learn from a teacher she hates because deep down she
>>identifies with this authority-relation; another student may relate
>>negatively to this relation suppress the conflict, and appear
>>"noncooperative" or "resistant",
>>
>>someone may do very poorly with a very sweet coach because the kid
>>identifies kindness as "feminine", and thus
>de-masculinizing...(desirable
>>for gay boys, for instance)
>>
>>whereas homophobic boys will desire a different masculinity from their
>coach...
>>
>>the complexities of the relation between teacher/student-player/coach
>is
>>so critical in the contexts of learning. (oops I'd reckon I just wrote
>a
>>"duh.")
>>
>>in any event, it is not just about "liking" someone, or learning from
>>someone, but it is about this relation of transference and "love."
>>
>>if we are agreed that knowledge is not content but relational, if
>>epistemology is ontologically recognizable (ooo-eee), then the
>>relationships here are more than situational, they are internally
>>historical, and specifically gendered.
>>
>>diane

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
*********************************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
instruction,
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada

tel: (604)-874-4807

mail:
3519 Hull Street

Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8