Intuition in a New Beat: An Educational Epistemology of Rhythm, Tone, and Movement

• In Event: 67.041 - New Perspectives on Intuition in Teaching

Abstract

Purpose. This presentation approaches intuition in education as an embodied, musical and rhythmic way of knowing required for creative and ethical action in the classroom. The metaphors of media of resonance, beat, movement and tone invite us to heed Canadian curriculum theorist Ted Aoki’s pedagogical call (Aoki, 1990/2005) to theorize curriculum through re/awakening whole body listening (sonare) to the lived experience of teachers and students. Rather than ‘curriculum implementation,’ Aoki’s ‘curriculum improvisation’ offers a frame to situate intuition as felt, resonant impulses that bring life to the tempo and melody of classroom encounters.

Framework. I look to the work of neurobiologist and cognitive scientist Francisco Varela (1999), who provides a theoretical basis for understanding knowledge and action as that which is spontaneously called forth from us by our sensory-motor coupling with our immediate circumstances. Varela’s work enables a cognitive reading of intuition that is less about what one sees in the mind’s eye (videre), but about what is heard and felt (sonare). Extending from Varela’s sensory-motor work, I take up Keeney and Keeney's conception of the human being as a “biopsychic resonator” (Keeney & Keeney, 2018), responsive to and organized by rhythm, tone, feeling, movement and sound. Their research from a wide range of studies, from improvisational jazz to ecstatic healing traditions, highlights how practitioners of any art including teaching can train their sensory-motor habits to become well-tuned instruments in service of transformation, learning, creativity, and healing. Considered in an educational context, I will position intuition here as an inarticulate but felt rhythmic and tonal sense for working with the “polyphonic tensionality” (Aoki, 1990/2005) of harmony and cacophony in the classroom.

Methods and Materials. Drawing from the work of musicians, healers and music teachers, experiential practices for attuning to internal and external experience of rhythm, tone and feeling will be discussed and offered as an inquiry into how educators and students get stuck in monotony, unable to handle ambiguity, conflict and uncertainty. Phenomenological notes from my teaching of shifting the tune and tempo that build capacity to listen differently and experience intuition in the space of “polyphonic tensionality” will be offered.

Analysis and Results. The juxtaposition of a rhythmic, sonic epistemology (based in feeling) with the more dominant intellectual and visual conceptualizations of intuition and cognition (based in thinking) raises questions about how we theorize curriculum and approach teacher development. Implications for treating the above tension as a generative paradox will be discussed.

Significance. This work challenges the tendency in the literature to psychologize intuition as something occurring inside the individual’s mind. Theoretical and practical grounding in sensory-motor activities that cultivate our ability to listen, sense, and move invites inquiry into how music and rhythm can serve as primary distinctions for improvising in the classroom.

Author

• Sean Roswell Park, McMaster University