The dialectic between teacher and learner is one of great importance but is often misunderstood or, perhaps in more weighted terms, is not brought to its full potential by the teachers.
This permeates in the marxist environment, which is the only one I’m concerned with currently, where teachers do not realize their role and full capabilities as such. It remains by and large – in my experience only – as not a dialectic, but a unidirectional conveyance.
The teacher speaks, and the learner listens. This is the metaphysical model.
But are we not all being taught, and thus learning, at any time? From discussions I’ve had where I started in this metaphysical “authority” role of the teacher (a role most people, me included, subordinate themselves to rather easily as what they think a learner should be) and ended up learning more than I taught.
I may know dialectics well. But I may not know economics well. A learner is a fluid thing, it goes through stages back and forth. I teach dialectics to someone, and I learn economics from them. By asking their questions, they help me refine my understanding – and capabilities to teach – of dialectics further.
The teacher should explain, promote, make considerations. The learner should retain, evaluate and analyze.
This requires for the learner to understand that their role is not simply to nod along and retain everything from the authority, and for the teacher to be open to changing their mind and methods.
The dialectic (contradiction) is resolved when the session gives birth to a new third thing, in this case similarly to the “original” Ancient Greek dialectic, and both parties come out with a third new idea that did not exist previously. The learner has learned and taught, and the teacher has taught and learned in a way they both further their understanding of the topic.
It can then repeat with the learner being able to become a teacher (in any capacity) and the teacher having refined what they will say (and how) to the next learner.
I see the complete opposite too often; marxists that would rather confirm their biases, eschewing their own capabilities as teachers (and learners – many think of themselves too highly to still be “learners”) and completely smothering any potential their interactions may have had as a teaching opportunity, at least dialectically.
You see this most often on social media, where the order of the day is to make cheap jokes, quick “stream of consciousness” quips, and confirming one’s own already formed beliefs.
In this role, they are being metaphysical (or at the very least undialectic). It’s not bad for the sake of it and me being able to use the jargon; it’s a malformed process because dialectic cannot take place, and cannot make things advance. Thus they remain stuck where they were exactly before: further confirming their belief that their tendency/ideas are the best, and working not to advance that tendency or idea, but to disprove that any other is good.
Immediately made me think of pedagogy of the oppressed
Good post. We often “know” something to be right without being able to explain why it’s right. This would disqualify us from being proper teachers and is not a dialectical approach, but its something many of us get stuck at and its an explanation for what you are observing. I also find myself in this position so consider this a self crit.
This is probably why folks view marxists as dogmatic, those of us that haven’t successfully shifted our lens from rationalism to materialism largely rely on the heads of marxism to guide us forward taking their word as an absolute fact. It’s a crutch. I do not trust any opinions I form on my own in regards to socialist analysis, I make too many errors, so I take the great men at their word. They liberated the working class in their parts of the world after all, if we just listen to what they said we can be great too.
I hope that more reading will help, but I’ve met some very well read people who have a similarly erroneous mindset.
I love using Socratic Dialogue during lessons. When students are grasping the material well, you get very palpable feedback that they are, and it lights a fire in their enthusiasm when students understand that they have so much agency in the student-teacher interaction. On the flip side, when they’re distracted or disinterested it slows your lesson down to a crawl, and time is the most scarce resource you have as a school teacher. Essentially you can get wildly mixed results because you’re entrusting your students with a great deal of influence over the flow of your lesson time.
Always have an alternate plan if you plan to engage in dialectics with students. A good educator can present the initial ideas and concepts, and then gauge the responsiveness of the classroom and know whether to prompt dialogue or just lead. When you can get students really grasping a topic just from talking to them about it, it’s the best feeling. And when you tell students that homework is to read the textbook pages that were planned for that lesson but that they didn’t need, it’s a huge confidence booster for them, too.
The unfortunate reality is that most schools are curriculum based. There’s assessments with set criteria at regular intervals, and between those assessments you have finite lesson time to prepare your students for the assessment criteria. So truly open-ended dialogues are rare; they’re a luxury you can afford after you’ve squared away the closed-ended lesson objectives.
You see this most often on social media, where the order of the day is to make cheap jokes, quick “stream of consciousness” quips, and confirming one’s own already formed beliefs.
I can only speak to the western english-speaking parts of the internet, but from my experience with them, there is a big problem of arrogance and ego, and I don’t exclude myself from being caught up in it at times; I have tried to consciously unlearn those tendencies, but I suspect it’s made more difficult to do so living in the US, with all its caste and competition.
I find that whether it’s social media now, or smaller internet forums a bit further back, it’s common for people to make confident assertions on things they know nothing about; invent entire explanations out of thin air rather than investigate their source; and generally derive pleasure and self-esteem from being perceived as the “smartest in the room, the most smooth and well put together.” One way I think I could misstep here is in looking at this and doing the liberal moralizing thing of saying, “I don’t want to be consumed by such base desires, so I will not try to present my ideas in a way that is compelling and will instead just sort of throw them out there and hope people listen.” But then I am abandoning effective rhetoric as a tactic, for fear of it being “corrupting.”
It may be that there is a time and place for quips in order to puncture any notions of the other person having something valid to listen to. But if it is not done tactfully and just done sloppily in order to indulge in arrogance and ego, then I would agree we aren’t really gaining any ground there.
Asking what it is exactly that we are trying to “advance” in context may be helpful. We can know, vaguely, for example that we’re trying to advance “communism”, but there are also fascists who pose themselves as communists, so we can’t depend on that being enough to clarify in vague language. We can know that we’re trying to advance anti-imperialism, but being anti-imperialist does not automatically make one’s cause communist. We can know that we’re trying to advance working class interests, but some working class elements, such as in the US, are imperialist or racist still and need to unlearn that if they are to be part of the liberation of the international working class.
This can slow things down and on some platforms, in some contexts, it may be more important to say anything rather than getting too deep into how to say it and what the aim is. But some of this reflection can be done outside of heated exchanges, even such as right now, with others who are of similar views. So thanks for bringing this up.
You should read Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, because it is precisely about what you are talking about. Full PDF
You see this most often on social media
I’m going to just point out that this is where this breaks down for me. Discussions in social media do not (usually) have the dialectic character of teacher and student, no matter how more learned one of the participants is. Most people, I would say the vast majority, have no interest in learning anything at all beyond more excuses to perpetuate their pre-existing beliefs, usually based in supremacism and bigotry. “You cannot reason a person out of what they never reasoned themselves into.”
“This requires for the learner to understand that their role is not simply to nod along…”
Where have you seen this situation where the learner and teacher accepts these roles and yet the Marxist teacher is still behaving like they “would rather confirm their biases”? It sounds like you’re describing arguments/debates you’ve witnessed, but applying a student/teacher educational format where none exists.
I’ve seen this idea recently, also here on lemmy. An expectation that Marxists should be pacifists, communicating in e-prime and having the personality of chat-GPT. I don’t believe this to be an effective approach to education, particularly on social media. It’s impossible to get someone to understand something when their ego depends on them not understanding it.
Absolutely, there are opportunities to be had but these are few and far between. People earnestly seeking knowledge on something is going to be treated well most of the time. Anyone who’s taken part in online discussion related to world events knows by now that no amount of reason or evidence will convince an interlocutor of their false beliefs, or that they’ve been misled. The Uighur genocide, Peng Shuai (just about anything China), the Ukraine war… etc. Who of us can say they’ve convinced their sparring partner to change their minds? On the other hand over the years I’ve had DMs from people to thank me for learning things from reading my arguments.
Debate on social media is a performative theatre for the readers to observe, not a place for direct pedagogical relationships. I meet the people where they are, using their own languages and slang, for the people watching. I have no expectation that I’m changing the minds of the people calling me a Putler dickrider who’s only in it for the Xi bucks.
I don’t necessarily have much to add, but one thing I tried to convey (but probably cut out by removing one too many paragraphs) is that the teacher-learner dialectic doesn’t happen only in strict controlled environments such as a classroom or a discussion full of questions. We all learn and we all teach at various times, flowing in and out of each role. Even during debates and arguments we do that. The point is to actually break down the confines the word imposes (by accepting our role as a passive learner, which is instilled in us at school, for example).
I recently had a similar discussion on lemmy where this was quoted to me, so it’s been preying on my mind.
“I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed.”
– Huey P Newton
I think I do need to self-criticise about the kind of behaviour you’re describing. Even re-reading what I wrote back to you, I exaggerate your point of view as “Marxists should be pacifists, communicating in e-prime and having the personality of chat-GPT”, this was obviously uncharitable and at worst dishonest. I think my attitude is something that’s come from the frustration of dealing with online discussion over the past couple of years of normalised mass madness. I think there’s a balance to be struck, but I’m obviously a bit off kilter. Sorry about that. I’ll do some thinking.
No problem comrade 🫡
