Class notes, Monday, N19

Teachers,

First, a few research items:

• An example of "post-hoc storytelling" (i.e. confirmation bias?) from Neuroskeptic
• Here is a particularly insightful look at how statistics can be gamed.
• Here is a more subtle approach.

On to Mr. Palomar.  Some background?

Author Italo Calvino presents Mr. Palomar's experiences as a combination of three dimensions

• 1 - the visual or the objective world that multiple people have access to at the same time
• 2 - the cultural or the normative/evaluative world that structures conscious awareness
• 3 - the philosophical or subjective world in which only each person has access

Here is an example.  Kelsie walks into room 101 before class begins.  She is freezing cold.  Andrew, who is already in the room, wears a jacket.  Kelsie asks if she can "turn the air down."  Before Andrew replies, what does he know about,

• 1 - is Kelsie speaking to him?  what happens if the air is turned "down"?  is it physically possible for Kelsie to "turn the air down"? and other issues that relate to the objective world of which both Kelsie and Andrew participate; are they talking about the same thing?
• 2 - is it allowed by the GSE for a candidate to "turn the air down"?  does one candidate need consult with another before taking actions on the room conditions?  what norms guide Andrew's actions toward another candidate or a woman? and other issues related to the normative world that underlies the way Andrew and Kelsie experiences the world of others
• 3 - what does it mean to Andrew and to Kelsie "to turn the air down"?  Is this a question of temperature? one of the white noise of the air conditioner?  is Kelsie sincere and/or serious in her request?  is Kelsie asking Andrew for permission? does Andrew respond to Kelsie in ways shaped by prior experience between them? and other issues that relate to their subjective worlds, or what Kelsie experiences but Andrew does not (and vice versa)

A simple question between two people has a cascade of possible meaning.  The question is simple only if all participants agree on the conditions which make the question simple. These are the validity claims in an argument, statement or question.  Critical ethnography, of the kind you will partake in your research and of which Mr. Palomar undergoes, examines these claims.  It starts with the recognition that communication is a process of negotiated meaning.  To reach understanding, participants - Andrew and Kelsie in the above example - must agree to all the claims made by a statement by constructing a world of shared meaning, before action is possible.  Otherwise, cognitive errors, faulty assumptions, misread intentions and other forms of miscommunication increase the risk of misunderstanding.

Think now of the possible meanings pregnant in at that moment.  One perspective could be that Andrew, having spent the day in a room sweltering at 80 degrees, is delighted about to be in such a cool place.  His students were exceptionally loud this day, and the speaker system broke its volume control so every loudspeaker message came in at 11.  Andrew is delighted to have the consistent low drone of the air conditioner drown out peaks of sound around him.  His subjective experience varies widely from Kelsie's. The simple question sits on the nexus of a horizon of possible meanings.  Understanding the explicit meanings, by examining the three dimensions of validity claims present in the question, takes effort.

Think now of a teacher and student.  Every statement given or question asked by the teacher and student  has conditions that make it true.  These relate to the objective or visual conditions of the statement (what exactly is being stated or asked?), the subjective or philosophical conditions of each participant (what does each think and feel about the statement or question? what might the other think or feel about the statement or question?  how sincere is each party?) and the normative or cultural conditions of each conditions (what background information or culturally relevant meanings determine how each participant makes sense of the statement or question).  In order to restore shared meanings, teacher and student must position-take with the other - try to understand how the other comes at the statement or question.

Here we can recall van Manen's claim about the "asymmetry" in a pedagogic relationship, and a heavy dose of your learnings from Equity:

• Should a teacher assume that all students share all the conditions inherent in the validity claims of her experiences?
• Should a teacher demand that all students learn to accept the conditions underlying her validity claims?
• Regarding the meaning of a situation, what does it mean for the teacher to have a larger responsibility in the relationship?

Mr. Palomar gives us an example of a perhaps more foundational question: what does it require for a teacher research to examine the meaning questions of her practice?

Thanks