The Phenomenal Class Teaching to Individual Learners
Abstract
This paper investigates some of the practical implications of a phenomenology of education, exploring how this philosophy can have a daily application to work that takes place in the classroom. Beginning with an overview of key principles in the philosophy of phenomenology, including ideas from Edmund Husserl’s and Martin Heidegger’s writings in the 19th-century, the paper examines more recent applications of this philosophy as an approach to pedagogy. The discussion includes the work of Malte Brinkmann and Norm Friesen, and then also that of the philosopher Hubert Dreyfus to consider the ways in which phenomenology would shape a teaching practice. The challenge here involves attempting to form authentic and genuine relationships, despite, or through, the various education technologies and platforms that are available these days. These technologies are often promoted as leading to student “immersion” in the subject matter, while the reality is, at the same time, that the teacher becomes distanced from the students, through the mediating effect of all this media. One example that is proposed as a way to address this issue, involves discussing the example of a class that I teach, where the students need to collaborate to build a playable video game in RPG Maker MV. They become immersed in learning the technology required to create an interactive game, while at the same time remaining in contact with their fellow collaborators as they develop the narrative and game play along the inclusive and enriched story telling principles that are presented in class.
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