She makes the very good point that our practice guides our
philosophy every bit as much as (or more than, since practice
usually creates novelty, while principles conserve past gains)
philosophy guides our practice. This is not just the case for
those new to teaching, I hope!
Her message renews some of my skepticism that people really have
(or need) consistent, definite and articulable philosophies or
principles for their practice. Of course, once asked, we can come
up with something to say, but there is a large literature both on
the instability of these views and their relative autonomy from
practice. Practice is so often, and so necessarily, emergent from
unique circumstances (i.e. truly _situated_) in which multiple
and contradictory-in-application (where not wholly ambiguous-in-
application) principles are only a small part of all the factors
that eventuate in action. I don't believe we live or act most of
the time by philosophies or principles (and couldn't do so).
Rather we take them into account sometimes, and we are better or
worse at articulating them and at accounting, retrospectively,
with them for our actions. Teachers usually just don't have
_time_ to analytically formulate actions. (This is where
"habitus" is a very useful alternative way to characterize what
_is_ consistent from action to action.)
Judy senses in addition a very important tangle: between helping
students with their own individual projects and helping to
maintain a social field of activity. She articulates the moral
dimension here with respect to the projects (what if they are
evil?), as we try here more often to do with respect to the
fields (oppressive, exploitative, etc.). But there is also a very
simple practical point: very often we _can_ only empower students
to do those things that mostly converge with existing fields of
activity, because those are all we actually know how to do
ourselves. Among my many skepticisms is one toward generalizable
higher-order reasoning and critical thinking skills. I don't
believe it is really possible to empower people in such general
ways (not that they can't be taught, but that they don't exist).
We can teach, sometimes, what we know how to do; and that is
always specific and almost always already part of a well-
established field of social activity. Genuinely divergent (as
opposed to merely "deviant") projects may make use of tools we've
provided, but tend to arise from unique and untaught features of
individual lives. JAY.
---------------
JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
BITNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM
INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU