Teaching and Learning with Matter

Tara Page

doi:10.3390/arts7040082

Abstract

Through bodies with matter, we are always making, performing and learning, so material pedagogy(ies) are embodied; they are intra-actions between bodies and matter, where with matter, bodies are being taught and are learning. But as learners, we are not always conscious of this intra-action or able to easily articulate it. The intention of this paper is to explore and share the creative acts of learning and teaching of bodies with matter and between spaces, where matter teaches us what it can and cannot do—a material pedagogy. Underpinned by new materialist scholarship, where socio-materiality is emphasised, this paper focuses on the relationalities of learning and teaching so that we can become conscious of our ways, materials and spaces of pedagogy. From this, we can then ensure that we explicitly acknowledge and support the creation of these places to enable a sustained pedagogic engagement for all learning environments that can be transformative and emancipatory.

Highlights

I propose and develop a new materialist theory of pedagogy in which the intra-actions of bodies and matter are conceived as pedagogic—an embodied and material pedagogy
If we think of these ‘total events’ as the way that matter teaches us and how we learn with matter, or how matter comes to matter, we can see that Whitehead (1926) theorises bodies as the catalyst of pedagogy. This is because bodies are conceived as not passive, objective perceivers they are the practices of senses and feelings that inform us, teaching us about current and past place/world, what Whitehead called ‘prehensions’, the basic, extrasensory awareness, or grasping, that all experiences have of all earlier experiences
(2005) asserts, ‘knowing in practice involves an interaction between the local and the global’ (p. 141) or as I would contend, an intra-action of the local with the global that is pedagogic. This can result in pedagogy ‘that becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which we, teachers with learners-learners with teachers deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of our world’ (Freire 1970, p. 16) and how we enable these practices to endure and to grow and evolve so that all learning spaces can become transformative and emancipatory places that disrupt hegemonies of power

Summary

Introduction

I propose and develop a new materialist theory of pedagogy in which the intra-actions of bodies and matter are conceived as pedagogic—an embodied and material pedagogy. The focus of this paper is on ‘individual’ practices but the relationalities of learning, bodies/sensation and memory—to become conscious of our ways, materials and spaces of pedagogy to ensure we acknowledge, support and sustain pedagogic engagement in all formal, such as universities and art colleges, and informal, i.e., community arts, etc., learning environments This scholarship indicates that these diverse places and ways are key in addressing the challenges, opportunities and possibilities we face as artists, educators and learners but are essential in pushing the what and how of contemporary art, art education and pedagogy

New Materialism and Pedagogy

Material Pedagogy

Pedagogies for Transformation and Emancipation