Looking ahead to October 4 & 5

Dear HEALers:

It was a pleasure to engage in such rich conversations this past weekend. The Saturday seminar on "issues of income security and employment in Canada" was particularly stimulating. I appreciated that we took the time to consider the concluding question of how our consideration of these social determinants of health can become the basis of personal action plans and commitments. The responses around the room were most thoughtful, sincere and inspiring.

We now look ahead to our next meeting on October 4th and 5th. Our topic is that of "Pedagogies of Health Education, Promotion and Care."

Thinking in general about pedagogy, we can consider how to construe this helpful, caring relationship as one that is potentially animating, health-inducing, and sustaining at physical, psychological, emotional, social, cultural and ecological registers of significance. We customarily speak in the terminology of procedures, programs, courses and curricula that provide the general direction for our interactions with others. But those frameworks and that terminology do not necessarily capture the moment to moment interactions and relationships we create with our clients, students, patients, participants, parents and the communities we serve. Pedagogy is ultimately a relational practice of attending to 'particular' people in 'particular' situations. It is a way of being responsive to those whose lives are invariably unique and whose circumstances are usually idiosyncratic. And yet, given this particularity and idiosyncracy, there are still some general ways of understanding this responsiveness, certain generalizable practices that work better than others, and theoretical perspectives that highlight essential commonalities within and across diverse fields of pedagogical practice. Always there is a theorizing, or 'refined way of seeing,' that can work for us.

We'll address the observable dynamics of this relational practice, which is to say, the stances, as well as the postures, positions, gestures and expressions, that demonstrate very visibly the practices of being responsive to and responsible for others. We'll seek to address, also, the kinesthetic, energetic and flow registers of pedagogical vitality.

The attached readings are intended, as always, to provide a backdrop to our discussions and inquiries. The van Manen article will allow us to talk a little more about body-mind matters in pedagogical relation to our health interests. The piece I wrote with Rebecca Lloyd will hopefully allow us to consider the dynamics of pedagogy through examples taken from exercise settings. The third piece, on "The first rush of movement," is a little heavier and presents a child-oriented, pedagogical viewpoint that revolves around a telling feature of vitality. The next one, on "Becoming horse in the duration of the moment" will address questions you may have as to why I chose "The Mane Event" as our field trip and why I think it provides an interesting 'laboratory' for considering the non-verbal aspects of pedagogical relationality. I attach, again and for those who did not get it in the original email, the older piece on "Operating on a child's heart." Its purpose is to show how you can define experientially a pedagogical focus for yourself and explore it through narrative and analytical means.

van Manen, Max (1998). Modalities of body experience in illness and health, Qualitative Health Research: An International, Interdisciplinary Journal, 8 (1), 7-24.

Lloyd, Rebecca J. & Smith, Stephen J. (2006). Interactive flow and exercise pedagogy, Quest, 58, 222-241.

Smith, Stephen J. (2007). The first rush of movement: A phenomenological preface to movement education, Phenomenology and Practice, 1, 1, 1-13.

Smith, Stephen J. (2011). Becoming horse in the duration of the moment: The trainer’s challenge, Phenomenology and Practice, 5 (1), 7-26.

Smith, Stephen J. (1989). Operating on a Child's Heart: A Pedagogical View of Hospitalization," Reprinted in Qualitative Health Research: A Book of Readings. Edited by Janice M. Morse. Sage Publications, July 1992, of an article published in Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 7, 1989, pp. 145-162.

Finally, there are the four chapters of the "Social Determinants of Health" on "Education" (chapter 9-12) to prepare us for another rich seminar.

In the meantime, feel free to send me your early draft of the beginnings of the major assignment.

Cheers,

Stephen.