A Teacher's Skills, Lived body, and Style : A Case Study of "A Class Divided"

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the concept of "style" as the pedagogical term through a case study of an American female teacher's radical teaching at the elementary school. The teacher's name is Jane Eliot, and the documentary film's title of this practice is "A Class Divided". To teach the racial problem she divided her class by the color of the children, and discriminated against their color. This experiment had an extraordinary effect on reducing their racial prejudice. At first, her skills are detailed and their pedagogical meanings are clarified. This description makes it clear that the effect of this experiment is based on her detail skills which are usually overlooked. Secondaly, her lived body's imporant role in her practice is described. This description is based on Melreau-Ponty's phenomenological study of our lived body. Lastly, her teaching style is interpreted. The concept of style means the coherent deformation of the standard mode in several demensions from one's principle or identity to the concrete teaching skills. In conclusion, the meanings of an excellent teaching method can be learned by the description and interpretation of the teacher's detail skills, lived body, and style.