Embodying Teaching: A Body Pedagogic Study of a Teacher’s Movement Rhythm in the ‘Sloyd’ Classroom

Abstract

The article draws on body pedagogics and considers that teaching and learning experiences and outcomes are directly related to the different characteristics of movement behaviour. In this article movement behaviour specifically centres on a sloyd (handicraft education) teacher's walk through the classroom. The analysis illuminate the specific teaching use of the body as a spatial, temporal and situational movement rhythm in the classroom and how teachers and pupils tune into educational discourses by means of different body techniques. A wireless GoPro camera was attached to the teacher's chest in order to gain detailed view of pupil-teacher-body-material-tool encounters and a specific visual perspective of the sloyd teacher's walk. During a 2.5 years fieldwork, 25 wood-metal sloyd lessons were observed and recorded (circa 50 h of video). The study is informed by Dewey's embodied theory of learning and focus the alternation between active and passive phases in the stream of experience. From such Deweyan perspective the rhythm of an activity for organising experience, is fundamental to the creation of intelligent moving habits. The results show the body pedagogic experiences, outcomes and means by highlighting the teacher's (a) spatial path by describing mutual relationships between the material arrangement of the classroom, the teacher's bodily movements and the pupils' participation in the lesson, (b) temporal pace by his 'flights and perchings' through the lessons and how he moves from pupil to pupil and assignment to assignment, (c) specific pacts by describing body techniques and situated teacher-pupil encounters that terminate in an agreement about how to proceed.

The walking rhythm of physical education teaching: an in-path analysis

“…This made us watch the recordings from the traditional camera view in a new way. The walking and rhythmic labouring that is foregrounded in this article had previously been seen, but remained unnoticed (see Andersson and Risberg 2018).…”

“…This framework recognises that teachers and pupils do not merely assimilate into a pre-existing environment, but also adapt the environment for their own purposes, i.e. they actively constitute the learning environment in which they act (Andersson, Garrison, and Östman 2018;Loquet and Ranganathan 2010;Amade-Escot, Elandoulsi, and Verscheure 2015;Andersson and Risberg 2018,).…”

Sy ihop

“…I studien framgår hur kroppslighet underlättar förståelse av initialt obekanta koncept, såsom att sy ett ärmhål. Studien relaterar därmed till frågan om kroppsligt engagemang i relation till material och instruktioner; vilket kan vara ett potentiellt utmanande område för lärare i möte med elever (Andersson & Risberg, 2018) men också vara ett utmanande område för eleverna själva. Påtaglighet fordrar helt enkelt förståelse -gärna med hjälp av kunnigt stöd -för att inte slå över till orosmoment.…”

Body pedagogics, transactionalism and vélo identities: Becoming a cyclist in motorised societies

“…This facilitated a large growth of varied research into cultural forms (e.g. Allen-Collinson & Hockey, 2020;Allen-Collinson et al, 2017;Andersson et al, 2015Andersson et al, , 2016Andersson & Risberg, 2018;Bell & King, 2010;Evans et al, 2008;Kelly et al, 2019;Kennedy & Johnston, 2019;McNarry et al, 2021;Mellor & Shilling, 2011;Nettleton, 2013;Rich et al, 2020;Saunders, 2007;Schaaf, 2019;Shilling, 2007Shilling, , 2010Shilling, , 2017Shilling, , 2018Shilling, , 2021Shilling & Mellor, 2007;Stahl, 2020;Wacquant, 2004;Wignall, 2016). Underpinning this diversity, however, was a shared concern with the relationship between those social, technological and material means through which culturally inflected practices are transmitted, the contrasting experiences of those implicated in this learning, and their embodied outcomes in terms of emergent habits and techniques (Shilling, 2007(Shilling, , 2018.…”