Embodying Tact in Teaching: Ineluctable Ambivalence, Sensitivity, and Reserve

• In Event: Aims and Ethics in Education

Abstract

Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant interest in educational discourse since it was initially defined in 1802 by Johann Friedrich Herbart, Immanuel Kant’s successor in Königsberg, as a “quick judgment and decision” to address “the true requirements of the individual case.” This paper begins with Kant’s 1789 description of “logical tact,” bringing this into connection with recent pedagogical accounts that underscore reserve or holding back for the sake of the student’s independence. Through reference to Merleau-Ponty and his student Waldenfels, it explores the simultaneously active and passive character of tact in terms of body’s own dual character—its simultaneity as physical and lived (Leib and Körper), as “hearing and heard, touching and touched, moving and moved.”

Author

• Norm Friesen, Boise State University