The Tropics of Teaching
is not an easy book to read. In fact, it is a difficult text, full
of intricate philosophical language and argument. It is not a book
that I would recommend for recreational reading neither for teachers
nor for students. However, is it important to the social studies
education community? The answer is absolutely yes, and this is why.
Tochon argues that educators have constructed a culture of niceness
around the act of teaching that negates the ethical nature of what
happens in good classrooms with experienced and caring teachers.
This culture of niceness prevents teachers and students from understanding
the problems associated with teaching and learning as they try to
make meaning of the world of education.
In order to understand
why Tochon believes this I'm going to take you on a brief, and I
hope clear, description of what I understand to be his philosophical
position. Tochon employs a semiotic analysis to teaching. Semiotics
is, I think, another one of the inexact 'sciences'. It is inexact
because there are many interpretations of what semiotics is; yet
it is a science because it does have a definite set of precepts,
or sets of precepts. The shortest definition of semiotics is that
it is the study of signs and its most notable practitioner is Umberto
Eco, who is probably most widely remembered for writing The Name
of the Rose. Eco describes semiotics as being "concerned
with everything that can be taken as a sign" (Eco, 1976, p.
7). I take this to mean that semiotics not only studies signs of
everyday life, like language, but also anything which stands for
something else, namely words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.
Another major figure
in the field of semiotics is the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss.
I think it may be easier to understand how semiotics relates to
teaching and learning if one thinks about how an anthropologist
tries to make meaning of the world he or she happens upon. In each
case understanding is constructed by making sense of signs presented
to them in various textual forms.
Let me illustrate, Lévi- Strauss creates a dialogue with
his materials and how best to use them. He asks how the process
of discovery leads to making meaning, and then he tracks that process.
What he does not do is lay down the path of what that meaning will
be beforehand. So semiotics calls for teachers, anthropologists
and students to construct personal meaning from actions. This is
a reversal of the traditional curriculum process, and of traditional
teaching and learning practices. In semiotics learning becomes a
creative act shaped by the intentions of the learner and also by
language and social and psychological factors. In Tropics of
Teaching, Tochon describes semiotics as the ethical element
of teaching. It is what good, experienced teachers do when they
care for their students. They become flexible in their pedagogical
practice. This ethical quality is highly prized by our society but
for the most part it has not been addressed in faculties of education
or in school classrooms. The reason for the split between theory
and practice, Tochon says, is that "we have forgotten that
teaching is the mirror to the soul and not based upon the rational
reflection of how to make things fit" (p. 132).
Tochon says that we
have further confused the meaning of such key concepts as word and
actions, ideology and change, economics and education, and that
we have lost touch with what is most important: contact. Contact
occurs during a conversation between teacher and student when it
is based upon a bottom-up discovery of the learning process. It
is not a prescribed path to defined ends. Tochon is telling us is
that teaching is the art of translating signs from art to poetry
and beyond. This world is not just found in books, computers or
audio-video material.
In the same way meaning
is not simply transmitted to us. We actively create it according
to a complex interplay of codes, of which we are unaware. I think
this point is vital. University education, in particular, is often
accused of not preparing students for the real world. Given my description
above I think we could say that too often teaching does not touch
base in order for us to understand signs. In many cases if signs
are learned they are not made explicit and therefore no real meaning
is made. Too often students pick up meanings implicitly and the
pedagogical moment has been lost.
Tochon calls the process
I have outlined Humanist reflection. So that we can understand how
this differs from much of what we traditionally do in our schools,
he has organized the book around three metaphors: 'productivity'
or output and standardization, 'warfare' or strategy and expertise,
and finally 'priesthood' or the enlightened subject. He argues that
we can by-pass these three concepts by employing a semiotic methodology
he calls his counter- methodology. This counter-methodology would
be learning activities based upon lived experiences as opposed to
top-down, plan oriented activities.
Tochon gives us an example
of such an activity in action poetry. Tochon believed that the city
of Geneva had lost touch with its soul and this was exhibited by
the lack of public interest in poetry. He took advantage of a local
grant and had students write original poems about matters of personal
interest to them. Each of the twenty-seven original poems was then
inscribed by hand in acrylic by a professional painter and then
mounted on billboards all over the city. The reaction was just what
Tochon had hoped for: a public conversation in all the media about
the poems. This initiated new and giant poems on billboards; many
are still visible in Geneva. Thus action poetry became a process
whereby the people of Geneva made meaning from the poetry in acrylic
on the public billboards. It began a shared public discussion of
the value of poetry, art, civic pride and much more. This is how
François Tochon conceives of the school curriculum and of
the nature of teaching and learning.
Let me leave the last words to him:
In action poetry, performance produces a metaphoric message,
which may take a narrative dimension. Action, which before all
else is abstract, erects a set of values into a set of metaphoric
symbols. These values cannot be separated from the context and
the field of action, and yet they present the poetic sign as
a means of reaching beyond the symbolic connections usually
promoted by the city. Through poetry, the city appears to be
refigured… and rejuvenated (p. 113). |
It would be nice to
think that educators could present such an argument about the nature
of teaching and learning when asked for it by those who pay our
way. Take some time and read this book. It is well worth the effort.
References
Eco, E. (1976). A
Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Lévi-Strauss,
C. (1972). Structural anthropology. Hammondsworth: Penguin.