'What Spring Does With the Cherry Trees': The eros of teaching and learning

Abstract

Teaching and learning are erotic acts. The processes of teaching and learning involve the ecstatic abandonment of self to the Other, the continual losing and finding of self in the Other, the intimate, sensual engagement of self with the world. It is eros, catalyzed by the bitter-sweet yearnings of ever-unfulfilled desire, that moves each of us to seek union with the Other. The vital, erotic coupling of self with environment gives rise to the reproduction and evolution of both self and environment. This is the process of natality, which we commonly call education. Pedagogy is a special kind of erotic encounter; a deliberate wounding of the student by the teacher that is mortifying and revivifying, humiliating and life-giving. The power relations within technical-rational systems of schooling are such that pedagogy is often experienced by the student as an act of violent imposition. Yet, no matter how harsh, disciplined, efficient and rational a system of schooling might be, it is impossible to colonize every moment, every body, every daydream, and every corner of every classroom. Eros flows into these wild spaces just as water flows into the earth after a long drought.