The phenomenology of gestures
and the pedagogy of exercise
and drill
Joris Vlieghe
Laboratory for Education and Society
University of Leuven (Belgium)
• General goal: to develop a new perspective on
the role of corporeality for understanding
educational phenomena (teaching and learning)
• The perspective I develop could be called
phenomenological
• At the same time I criticize the main stream
phenomenological approach to the issue of the
body and education
• I will focus on a specific pedagogical practice:
exercise/drill (German: ‘Üben’; Dutch: ‘oefenen’)
Overview
(1) Mainstream view : phenomenology of the
meaning-generating body (Merleau-Ponty)
and its succcesses in pedagogy
(2) Critique of this mainstream view
(3) Alternative approach: phenomenology of
gestures (Vilém Flusser)
Mainstream view
• This view should be understood as a reaction to
firmly rooted prejudices in educational theory and
practice regarding the body, viz. intellectualist and
dualist accounts
These accounts regard corporeality
- either as a nuissance/danger
- or as a dimension that has at most a secondary relevance
• Although in practice these prejudices are still far too
prevalent, in theory intellectualist/dualist accounts have
lost lot of their cedibility
As a result of:
- societal and cultural evolutions
- scientific discoveries (e.g. mirror neurons)
- input from philosophy (Dewey, Ryle, MERLEAU-PONTY)
Mainstream view
• Merleau-Ponty shows that
[1] what is so called ‘intellectual‘ is in reality
dependent upon the way in which we are as
bodies situated in the world
[2] many things we learn are in reality no
cognitive, but practically embodied skills
[3] the body itself is a source and carrier of
meaning (it has its own intentionality)
Mainstream view
• In the wake of these insights, many educationalists have
argued for a more body-centered pedagogy: it is high
time to recognize that the body is a neglected resource
we should put at work in order establish relevant
educational goals, more efficiently and/or in a way that
is more respectful to the whole human being
• E.g.: testing knowledge of scientific concepts; dealing
with xenophobia; physical litteracy; laughter
• At the same time: a plea to abolish obsolete practices
like exercising and drill (which merely discipline and
subject the body) in favour of practices that appeal to
the meaning-creative potentials inherent to the body
Critique of the mainstream view
• Three fundamental lines of criticism (I will only deal
with the first two in this presentation) :
[1] the body is actually turned into an instrument for
obtaining goals that have nothing to do with the body
[2] the body is taken seriously indeed, but only insofar
it can do the same things that used to be reserved to
the solemn realm of the mind (intentionality, meaningcreation): body = mind in disguise
[3] this theoretical reappraisal of the body doesn’t
convincingly explain why in practice there has been
(and still is) such a hostility vis-à-vis the body in
education
An alternative approach
• A view which takes the idea far more seriously that
education is a corporeal affair
• I turn to the work of Vilém Flusser (1920-1991), an
author who is not often discussed and who focussed
his attention among other things on new media – and
more specifically on the differences between writing
and digital forms of communication
Does Writing Have a Future? (2011)
Into the Universe of Technical Images (2011)
• Attempt to develop ‘a phenomenology of gestures’
Phenomenology of ‘gestures’
Gestures are …
• embodied practices, often related to concrete
material objects/tools,
• the sense of which should NOT be understood in
view of an already given idea about this practice
from a mind-focused perspective (i.e. what we
spontaneously think and feel when we perform a
certain activity)
• BUT, the sense of which should be understood
from material-technological dispositions that
constitute this practice
Phenomenology of ‘gestures’
• For example: the gesture of writing
“what does it means to put very material letters upon the surface of
a very material sheet of paper?”
• We should NOT approach it in the first place as a
medium (instrument) for expressing meaning
• BUT as an activity that follows a specific logic of
its own, and which shapes our potential to
express meaning in the first place
• Difference between ideographic/numerical ‘writing’
and alphabetic writing: whilst alphabetic writing is
linked to the one-dimensional logic of the ear,
numerical/ideographic writing mirrors the twodimensional logic of the eye
• As such different forms of writing correspond to
different ways of thinking: alphabetization as a
precondition for the possibility to think in a manner
that is rational, causal and historical (Cf. McLuhan,
Ong, Stiegler)
• Flusser's interest in this evolution stems from his
concern what a shift towards digital literacy would
imply (gesturologically spoken it concerns a
completely different way to relate the world,
implying a fundamental transformation in our selfexperience)
• Rather than exploring further what the (near)
future might bring, I'll focus on the more
'traditional' practice of alphabetization, i.e.
learning writen languge by repeating (collectively
and repetitively) the basic elements of this
language (a, b, c, ...)
• mostly this is seen as an obsolete practice or as
something that has no intrinsically educational
value (merely a preparation for the truly
meaningful activities) (cf. Merleau-Ponty)
• However, taking Flusser's point of view seriously,
it might be argued that this kind of exercise/drill
constitutes the essence of (school) education
• The obsession with meaning (Merleau-Ponty)
precludes the possibility to come to terms with
the role of corporeal dimensions of education that
are precisely disposed of meaning
• Seen as gesture, repetitive and collective
exercise are heavily embodied practices that imply
a very specific (and unusual) way to relate to a
subject matter (here: written language).
• The basic idea then is that these corporeal
dimensions do matter: learning alone or together,
with or without repetition makes a difference.
• Exercise and drill make us relate to the basic
dimensions of a subject matter, NOT as individuals
with our own interests and motivation, BUT as a
collective of bodies.
• Precisely this can account for the educational
significance of exercise/drill : their specific ‘gestural’
quality grants the possibility of real transformation,
i.e. a suspension of the usual way in which our
individual and collective lives are ordered
• This kind of analysis can be used to elucidate the
sense of all kinds of school practices (learning to
count, declination of verbs, basic callisthenics, singing
in group, etc.)