The Practice of Practice (paper)

A quick re-visit to knowing

With thanks to Max van Manen

The prominance of practice

With some authors the discourse of practice is especially associated with critical theory, postmodernist and deconstructionist writing. In the work of other authors we encounter a more commonplace usage of "the practice of teaching," analogous to the practice of religion or the practice of medicine. Similarly, the educational nomenclature such as "moral practice," "reflective practice," "critical practice" stands for the range of possible actions and vocabularies that these terms evoke. So it appears that practice has become a buzz-word.

Practice as explanation stopper

Another interesting feature is that practices, in this more fundamental sense (as reproductive dispositions, language games, genealogies, or embedded vocabularies) are not directly accessible, observable, measurable, definable. Rather, they are hidden, tacit, often linguistically inexpressible in a direct or propositional sense.

The important point is that while in educational discourses the term practice may be a gloss, it does hide a complex and fascinating pedagogical reality.

Lived practice

At the micro level of the practice of teaching there are layers of action and mutual understanding that are instantly and often unreflectively realized in everything that teachers do in constantly changing situations.

(Un)refective practice

It seems therefore that, on the one hand, the theory of reflective practice seems to overestimate the possibility of introspective "reflection on action while acting" (van Manen 1994, 1995). Phenomenologically it is very difficult, if not impossible, for teachers to be emersed in interactive or dialogic activities with their students while simultaneously stepping back from the activity. On the other hand, the theory of reflective practice seems to underestimate the complexity of the organization of ordinary teaching practices, and the incredible intricacies of practical actions in teaching-learning situations. I would argue that the practice of teaching is so challenging not only because it is cognitively complex but also because the knowledge that inheres in our practices is in part noncognitive...

Knowledge in practice

This is how I would make sense of these forms of noncognitive knowing:

(a) Knowledge resides in action as lived, e.g.,- as confidence in acting, style, and practical tact- as habituations and routine practices

(b) Knowledge resides in the body, e.g.,- as an immediate corporeal sense of things- as gestures and demeanor

(c) Knowledge resides in the world, e.g.,- as being with the things of our world- as situations of at homeness, dwelling

(d) Knowledge resides in relations, e.g.,- as encounter with others- as relations of trust, recognition, intimacy

By noncognitive I mean then that in their practice experienced teachers commonly demonstrate a kind of confidence that is really a form of knowing except that this "knowledge" cannot necessarily be captured in words.

In short, the study of the practice of teaching would need to be sensitive to the experiential quality of practical knowledge: the acknowledgement that much of knowing what to do, ensues from the complex dimensions of practice: one's body, actions, relations, and the things of one's world.

Complexity in practice

Teaching techniques employed by different teachers may look behaviorally the same on the outside but individual teachers always have acquired and developed these practices in a personal manner–sometimes in entirely different biographical and situational settings. Thus, particular practices get embodied in the context of personal life histories and backgrounds, and these practices become habituated in uniquely different situational and relational spheres.

Van Manen, M. (1994). Pedagogy, virtue, and narrative identity in teaching, Curriculum Inquiry, OISE/John Wiley (Toronto), Summer 1994, Vol. 4, No. 2. pp. 135-170.

Van Manen, M. (1995) On the Epistemology of Reflective Practice. Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice. Oxford Ltd. Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 33-50.

Van Manen, M. (1999) The Practice of Practice.In: Lange, Manfred; Olson, John, Hansen, Henning & BŸnder, Wolfgang (eds.): Changing Schools/Changing Practices: Perspectives on Educational Reform and Teacher Professionalism. Luvain, Belgium: Garant.