The Exploratory Practice Centre

Inés Kayon de Miller

WHAT I UNDERSTOOD LAST TERM AS WE PREPARED OUR WORKSHOP

Inés Kayon de Miller, PUC-Rio

2003.1

Dear students, 

I apologise for not having written these thoughts earlier but better late than never... 

In the very first place I need to thank you for the wonderful learning opportunities that you were willing to allow to create for all of us! I really learnt a lot in the process. I learnt about teaching, about learning but mostly about myself. 

In retrospect, I can now say that the whole event and our group enterprise made it very clear to me that we have had the courage to risk. I seem to be moved by a passion for experimenting and for getting involved in uncertainty. I fear it but I also love it at the same time. I’ve been told that the K in my maiden name may be related to a ‘K’ factor – a ‘kaos’ factor! 

My first daring move was to decide to share with you Dick’s ideas of ‘Planning for Understanding’. I felt that you could do it and that having Dick with us later on in the term would it make it quite a special experience. We all saw how difficult it turned out to be but this was part of the challenge. As you know, this was before it occurred to me for us to prepare the workshops with you… 

Then came the workshop idea and I was quite pleased at your willingness to participate. I felt that we could trust ourselves to do it. But sometimes your attitude distressed me – I kept thinking that you had changed your mind but did not dare tell me. Let me say that this was so even before Dick’s arrival! 

Dick’s being so close to me, to the ideas we were trying to convey, to the notion of working with students and to the process of planning the workshop made the entire process quite fascinating but, I confess, more challenging to me. I was caught up between what we were trying to do and my own personal fears as a person and as a teacher.  

I felt very much that, as Palmer (1998:17) puts it, “teaching is always done at the dangerous intersection of personal and public life.” After mentioning how therapists and lawyers deal with the personal and the public in their professional-client relationship, he goes on to say: 

But a good teacher must stand where personal and public meet, dealing with the thundering flow of traffic at an intersection where “weaving a web of connectedness” feels more like crossing a freeway on foot. As we try to connect ourselves and our subjects with our students, we make ourselves, as well as our subject, vulnerable to indifference, judgment, ridicule.  

Usually, outside the classroom, I have a problem with division of labour and, as a consequence, I tend to feel better when I do more. I guess this brings me a sense of confidence and, if my work is appreciated, so much the better. I believe that our workshop planning allowed me to understand that I tend to do the same in the classroom. Without a doubt, what I found more difficult in the entire process was to allow the planning process to evolve at its own rhythm, at the group’s rhythm. I seemed to want to do more than my share and, possibly, I wanted to do it ‘as best as possible’.   

Maybe, I even did more than I should have during the workshop itself. And, as you said, I was more nervous than you were. I apologise for doing this, but I thank you again for the opportunity of developing my personal professional self-understanding.   

Collegialy yours,  

Inés

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