Summary: | An inquiry invites many questions. How does one pause to write about learning
and living begun in the past, yet is so present and continuous? What genre, what words,
what position and what tone art-fully communicate without artifice? Questions lead to
possibilities; in/decisions open to places unknown.
The title announces the subject and focus. As a learning teacher, I pause in my
work and studies to consider pedagogical moments. A thesis typically promises findings
of original research from a specific view. My reflections are original, but what do they
find? I explore formative experiences, from sundry points of view/time, but claim no
pronounce-able conclusion. The writing is a text-ured partial weaving of poetic,
narrative, and autobiographical styles through hermeneutic inquiry that opens me to postmodern
possibilities.
And what findings emerge? In un/raveling pedagogic moments, I am entangled in
spaces which (continue to) arrest my linear intentions, give me pause and stimulate
change. In writing and re-writing, recent stories replace older ones while conflicting
nuances and tentative understandings intrude. I find myself caught in past-present
moments which provoke more questions, evoke more in/decisions and invoke more
wonder.
The sub-title further articulates intent. Attending involves paying attention,
listening and taking care. Rooted in French, tendere means to stretch: teaching certainly
tugs and enlarges. Alerted to tend, I recognize the call to serve, to cultivate, to foster.
As I at-tend to self and other, urging students to have voice, I am exposed to richly
relational experiences, which are disruptive and risky.
The structure interlaces five questions, each prompting a story followed by
threaded thoughts. Through to-and-fro movements, I interact with diverse, mind-ful
thoughts gleaned from others engaged in pedagogical and philosophical work. Interludes
offer a/rhythmic pulses. As the question-story-thought-threads spin on, I find myself
seeking less control of knowledge and craft, rather re-reading my teaching life in order to
dwell in awkward, tremoring pedagogic spaces, cracking with questions and vibrant with
complicated relationships. The writing pauses to an end, which is not a stop, for as a
learning teacher and teaching learner, I will continue to invite/join conversations found in
transformative spaces, anticipating learning anew. === Education, Faculty of === Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of === Graduate
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