Lurking, Distilling, Exceeding, Vibrating

Lynn Fendler

Studies in Philosophy and Education An International Journal ISSN 0039-3746 Stud Philos Educ DOI 10.1007/s11217-012-9303-x

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Stud Philos Educ DOI 10.1007/s11217-012-9303-x

Lurking, Distilling, Exceeding, Vibrating

Lynn Fendler

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract This paper addresses two main questions: (1) What has theory been doing? and (2) What might theory be doing? The rst question is addressed historically, and the second question is addressed imaginatively. In between those two topics, I have inserted a brief interval to raise some sticking points pertaining to the question, What is properly educational about educational theory? Keywords Educational theory Imagination Post/modernism Laboratory for educational theory

All of us in the eld of education have had experiences talking about the theory/practice dichotomy. We hear teachers say, I need practical ideas; I dont need or care about theories. As a teacher educator, when I hear teachers express that view, I usually respond with a question: Do you ever give your students rewards, prizes, consequences, or praise? Of course! they reply. Then I try to explain that the word learning comes from the theory of behaviorism, which is a rather new idea, and the practice of using praise or reinforcements to promote learning is an enactment of that theory, which was formalized by B.F. Skinner in the 1950s. Over time and with repeated use, the theory of behaviorism has become naturalized so that most people do not even recognize it as a theory when it gets enacted in classrooms. We now tend to take that particular theory for granted. Giving praise and rewards feels like a practical thing to do, not a theoretical thing; the theoretical underpinnings of praise and rewards have long since been forgotten. My repeated encounters with the theory/practice dichotomy have led me to this inference: Whatever is familiar is regarded as practical, whereas whatever is new, different,
The article is based upon an invited keynote speech to the First International Theorising Education Conference, University of Stirling, June 2010. L. Fendler (&) Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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or unfamiliar is considered to be theoretical. That inference serves as a launching point for this essay. This paper addresses two main questions: (1) What has theory been doing? and (2) What might theory be doing? The rst question is addressed historically, and the second question is addressed imaginatively. In between those two topics, I have inserted a brief interval to raise some sticking points pertaining to the question, What is properly educational about educational theory?

What has Theory Been Doing? Lurking Theory has been lurking. In most cases these days, theory has been lurking behind methodology. The relationship between theory and methodology has been put forward as a central issue for the LET conference. I dont want to say that methodology has replaced theory because it has not. Rather, by using the term lurking I am trying to convey the idea that, even though methodology has been prominent and obvious in educational studies, theory has never been absent. As an illustration of how theory has been lurking, we can consider the required formats for conference proposals, and even most dissertation proposals. When we write or review conference proposals (such as for AERA), it is often difcult to discern which part of the proposal is supposed to be devoted to the theoretical explication of the project. Theory often lurks in the methodology section or sometimes the literature review section. Theory is often implied in the analysis section. For social science projects in education, it is rarely explicit how researchers have theorized their projects with respect to epistemology, politics, ethics, or aesthetics. By the same token, it can be awkward to write conference proposals for (what AERA calls) conceptual studies. Theoretical, philosophical, and historical research projects do not t easily into the required formats for AERA proposal formats, which have been designed to facilitate communication about social scientic research approaches. Much conceptual research is humanities oriented. In humanities-oriented educational research, it doesnt always make sense to separate the literature review from the theoretical framework from the analysis. In the process of writing an AERA proposal, it becomes necessary to become creative about tting aspects of a humanities-oriented study into the proposal format that is designed for social science. The format of the proposal does not easily accommodate theoretical research projects. That incompatibility is an example of how theory is lurking in the institutional expectations for research. Theory is lurking in the very structure of the research proposal requirements. Here is another story to illustrate how theory has been lurking. In 1994, I attended an AERA meeting in New Orleans. There was a panel discussion that was moderated by Bob Donmoyer that was called Yes, But Is It Research? On the panel were several eminent educational researchers including Howard Gardner, Elliot Eisner, Patti Lather, and Deborah Britzman. The rst question that the moderator posed to the panel was, Should a novel be accepted as a dissertation in colleges of education? The question was cleverly designed to elicit arguments dening the limits around what might be regarded as acceptable research in the eld of education. It was a very interesting session, and participants raised a wide array of arguments. But here is what I noticed most. The educational researchers who were promoting non-

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scientic research paradigms (including qualitative studies, arts-based studies, and humanities-oriented studies) were very skillful at articulating and making explicit the theoretical bases for their research projects. In contrast, the science- or social-scienceoriented educational researchers were quite at a loss to justify in theoretical terms their epistemological commitments. The scientic educational researchers had apparently never been required to theorize their research projects or explaining the affordances and limitations of their scientic approach to educational research. They had not had opportunities to explain their work in theoretical terms because the theoretical support mechanisms for their scientic projects had always been lurking, and taken for granted as self-evident in their approaches to research. The science-oriented researchers were very experienced in outlining their methodologies and articulating aspects of validity in methodological terms. However, whenever a question arose regarding theory, the scientists tended to respond by providing details about their methodological protocol. Theory was not absent from their projects, but theory was not made explicit; it was lurking within the research projects and in the attempts by scientists to justify their approaches to research. In attempts to make theory more explicit, some critical theorists have argued that in our proposals and research reports we should distinguish method from methodology. For many critical theorists, for example, method is a protocol, or the series of steps you might do to conduct research. In contrast, the methodology section should include a discussion of epistemology and an explanation of the lenses, basically a theorization of the research approach. The distinction between method and methodology has been one attempt to expose the lurking theories and make them explicit within the discourses of methodology and analysis. From some relatively recent developments in the eld of educational research, I suspect that theory might be doing less lurking and becoming increasingly more explicit in educational research. The most prominent among these developments is the recent (2009) publication by AERA of Standards for Reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research in AERA Publications. For many of us, our rst reaction to the publication of these AERA standards might be, Oh, no. Not more standards! Not for the humanities! Surprisingly, however, I found these standards quite refreshing, and indicative of an increasingly explicit role for theory in educational research, at least among researchers working in philosophy, history, and arts based traditions. The AERA Standards are presented in a relatively short document (about 9 pages), and the standards provide for a wide range of theoretical engagements. In my experience as a faculty advisor, I have found that these standards have been very useful for doctoral students who want to write theoretical and philosophical dissertations. These new AERA standards have served to provide some helpful language for researchers who need to articulate some of the theories that have been lurking within educational research projects. The language of the standards helps to make educational theory more explicit. Distilling In the context of social complexity, theory has been distilling. Educational researchers are quite familiar with how theory has been distilling in an analytic sense: analytical theories express in clarifying terms a pattern that distills a vast and complicated array of data. Theory in the analytic sense distills complexity; some would even say it reduces complexity to regularity. In the case of Darwins theory of evolution, for example, a vast array of genetic mutations can be understood as adaptations; and in the case of Aristotles

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theory of persuasion, complex human communications become recognizable in a beautiful three-part structure: ethos, pathos, and logos. The distillations accomplished by analytical theories are quite familiar to us. This distillation role of theory is probably the most familiar and recognizable role of theory in education and other elds. But it is not only analytic theories that have been distilling; critical theories have also been distilling, and thereby providing us with language to talk more efciently about complex patterns of power. The value of distilling for critical theory is to help us put intuitions and perceptions into discourse. When theory distills, it renders formulations. Formulations allow us to put perceptions and intuitions into language. When we put perceptions into language, then it becomes possible to debate, critique, and deconstruct those intuitions. As an example of distilling in critical educational theory, we can think of Popkewitzs (2002, 2004) alchemy of school subjects. The alchemy is a theory that addresses the relationship between university disciplines and school subjects. The theory of the alchemy of school subjects suggests that subjects are constructed in their own respective historical contexts. In universities, disciplines are shaped by funding demands, publication trends, and organizational structures of university departments. In schools, disciplines are shaped by child psychology, pedagogy, assessment instruments, classroom routines, administrative structures, and socialization practices. In the theory of the alchemy of school subjects, we can see that disciplines in the university are not the same as disciplines in the schools. We cannot expect them to be the same because disciplines are always constructed by their respective historical enactments. For Popkewitz, the theory of the alchemy of school subjects is not a neutral, analytic theory. It is a critical theory. The theory of the alchemy of school subjects serves as a tool to help us grasp the effects of power, specically that subject matter is never pure, never neutral, and never value-free. The theory of the alchemy highlights power relations that shape disciplines: subject matter is value-laden in a way that normalizes what it means to be a researcher, a teacher, or a student. The theory of the alchemy of school subjects shows us the multiple meanings of the word discipline. School subjects are disciplines, and we discipline ourselves in school subjects. This is an example of how theory has been distilling in critical approaches to educational research. Reframing To illustrate how theory has been reframing, I speak here about a relatively new and utterly fascinating theory of smell. The long-standing, and dominant theory of smell has claimed that the shapes of molecules determine what they smell like to us. For biochemistry, shape has served as an effective mechanism for explaining how molecules get together. The problem is that the shape theory (that works so well in so many other domains of biochemistry) does not really work in the case of smell: That is, if we take a natural molecule, and synthesize that molecule to have the same shape as the natural one, the two molecules will not smell the same. The shape theory of smell has been challenged by Luca Turin, a biophysicist, now at MIT. According to Turin (2005), A theory is labor saving. A theory enables you to do less work. Turin has theorized that it is molecular vibrationsnot molecular shapesthat determine their smell. This vibrational theory totally reframes how it is possible to talk about the relationship of chemistry to olfactory perceptions.

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Interestingly, Turin has a second job besides being a biophysicist at MIT. He also works for the French perfume industry. In that capacity, he has had a chance to demonstrate the applications of his vibrational theory. Turins laboratory synthesized a molecule for coumarin, a lovely smelling but toxic natural substance that is coveted by perfumers. Turin created a molecule with the same vibrational signature as natural coumarin. The result was a synthetic coumarin that smelled the same as natural coumarin to the perfumers, but was also free of the toxicity that came with natural coumarin. Turins vibrational theory of smell has reframed the issue of smell so dramatically that the theory has revolutionized the eld of olfactory chemistry. Turins theory is not yet universally acknowledged. Some major scientic journals still maintain the shape theory of smell, and they do not always accept manuscripts that are based on research in a vibrational theory of smell. Here is another illustration of how theory has been reframing. This time the illustration is from teacher education, namely: How do we teach dispositions? In order to talk about reframing how we think about teaching dispositions, I will suggest that we combine a standard theory of educational objectives with a standard theory of pedagogical modes. It is very common in teacher education to classify educational objectives into three categories: knowledge, skills, and dispositions. In the educational curriculum literature, knowledge and skills are well dened; we know basically what they are, how to teach them, and how to assess them. However, educators also seem to agree that the curriculum of teacher education must include not only knowledge and skills, but also dispositions. By dispositions, people usually mean things like virtues, ethical sensibilities, citizenship, and character traits; but dispositions remain poorly dened. Not only are dispositions poorly dened, they are also poorly distinguished in teaching and educational assessments. In many cases, a curriculum that is focused on dispositions is often executed through the delivery of information about ethics, cultural tolerance and respect, etc. That is, dispositions are converted into the knowledge domain, in which students are expected to know about dispositions. In this curriculum students are expected to know such things as what constitutes respectful behavior and that there are cultural differences we must respect. In other cases, dispositions become operationalized not as knowledge, but rather behaviors. In these curricula, dispositions get converted into the skill domain, in which particular behaviors (smiling; docility; attentiveness) become identied as enactments or indications of dispositional objectives. Although there has been more work on dispositions recently, we are still (at least in the US) not very good at dening, teaching, or assessing dispositions as such. Dispositions have been a problem for teacher education for a long time. But theory has been helping us to reframe the issue. Here is an illustration of how theory has been reframing the issue of dispositions in teacher education. We begin with the educational domains of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. To that frame we add an analysis of pedagogical modes or modalities of teaching, namely provider, facilitator, and model. In the provider mode, teachers may lecture, answer questions, or serve as resources for information. In the provider mode, teachers have something to give students. In the facilitator mode, teachers design environments, create assignments, encourage experiences, and promote repeated practice for students. In the model mode, teachers teach by example. Modeling may be unintentional or tacit. When teachers act in particular ways in the classroom, students tend to pick up on the tone and norms of interpersonal relations. In this mode, teachers exemplify styles of interacting with people and with ideas.

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One indication that teacher education has been under-theorized is that too many people conate teaching with the provider mode. An anecdote from my teaching illustrates how even teachers tend to conate teaching with the provider mode, and neglect the facilitator and model modes. Last spring I was teaching a Masters level Philosophy of Education course, and the course was fully online. I taught it using a wiki format in order to maximize opportunities for everybody in the course to contribute, create pages, and interact with one another. At the end of the course, one student wrote me an email saying: Thank you for running this course. I was struck at her use of the term running this course, so I wrote back to her saying, Why did you say running this course instead of teaching this course? She replied saying that since the course was not lecture based, it was not exactly teaching. I was surprised that it became necessary to explain to her that the whole design of the course, the assignments, the responses to student writing, and the wiki architecture were all teaching because teaching includes not only providing information, but also facilitating educational experiences, and modeling scholarship and inquiry. Beginning with the domains of knowledge, skills and dispositions, and then adding the three teaching modalities, we can begin to reframe the issue of dispositions in teacher education in relation to pedaogical modes this way: The provider mode is associated with knowledge. Teachers are providers of knowledge. The facilitator mode is associated with skills. Teachers design environments to facilitate repeated practices for the development of skills. Modeling is associated with dispositions. Teachers embody and exemplify respectful relationships, intellectual curiosity, and aesthetic appreciation. Theory has been reframing issues in education. In this case, reframing allows us to recognize various modalities of teaching, and to appreciate the potential relationship of modeling to the teaching of dispositions.

A Short Interval on Sticking Points Gert Biesta has drawn our attention to the issue of what is properly educational about educational theory. I would like to take up and extend Gerts focus now by illustrating three sticking points that pertain to the question of what might be considered proper educational theory. Grain Size The rst sticking point has to do with grain size. Obviously, education as a eld is too big and includes too many things. But the eld of education also is comprised of a vast array of grain sizes from micro through meso to macro. I sometimes refer to this as the focal distance. From how far away, or how closely, are we examining an issue? By analogy, the institutional division of life sciences can help to illustrate variations in grain size. Biology includes several areas of specialization that vary according to grain size from small to large: molecular biology, microbiology, biomechanics, zoology, and ecology. These areas of specialization complement one another within the broad study of life sciences. Different focal distances afford a range of perspectives that add depth and dimension to the eld of Biology.

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Like Biology, education is a similarly broad topic. However, within education we have not been similarly explicit about how various grain sizes of research can function in a complementary way. We may be able to generate robust educational theories that pertain to teaching in a classroom, but those theories would not necessarily help us with developing theories that pertain to a school, a district policy, or historical trajectories. Theorizing at the classroom level is very different from theorizing at the global level. As a eld I think we would benet from more explicit clarication of the grain size for which our theorizations are applicable. I think grain sizes for what we mean by education is one of the sticking points for educational theory. It might be worthwhile for researchers to be more explicit about the grain size of our research foci in order to help us understand more clearly the relationships among various theoretical formulations, and to see those relationships as complementary instead of contradictory or in competition with one another. Modernism The second sticking point is that educational research in general has tended to recognize and dene theory in terms of modernity. Most of what we know today as theory, including the Great theories of the world, are understood in modern terms. By modern I mean theories that have the characteristics of generalizability, predictive power, and rational coherence. In assessing the value of a theory, for example, the general rule has favored modernism: the more comprehensive and generalizable the theory, the more valuable the theory. Under the inuence of modernism, I think it has been usual to assume a close relationship between theory and grand narrative. If we think of theory only in terms of modern grand narratives, then we have limited the potential for both education and theory. Given the conventional association of theory with modernism, we have perhaps not cultivated sufcient imagination for theories that might be valuable on the basis of criteria other than grandness, coherence, generalizability, or predictive accuracy (this point will be elaborated in Part 3). Originality and Derivation In one framing of the issue of what is properly educational about educational theory, we think of the problem as one of borrowing ideas and methods from disciplines other than education. The question, then, becomes what would be a theory that is not derived from other disciplines, and is therefore properly educational. In this framework, proper educational theory is contrasted with derivative educational theory. In the discussion of this third and last sticking point, I would like to try to reframe the problem of original-versusderivative for educational theory. I will try to illustrate this reframing with a story, by way of analogy. When I was an undergraduate student studying Modern East Asian History, one year I was given a particularly well-crafted nal exam essay question. The question was: Is Japanese culture original or derivative? It was an excellent exam question because it is possible to argue either position with compelling support. Japanese culture has often been described as a collage of other cultural inuences because almost everything about Japanese culture (including the writing system, religions, schooling, arts, food, politics, and social structures) seem to have been borrowed from other cultures. At the same time, across all of these expressions of Japanese culture, we can recognize something distinctly Japanese.

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Therefore, it is possible to argue effectively either that Japanese culture is derivative, and/ or that Japanese culture is original and unique. Extending this analogy, it could be argued that all disciplines are original or derivative in some way or another: physics derives from math; literary criticism derives from political theory; history derives from economics or literature. As pertaining to education, we have usually been more inclined to portray our eld as derivative. However, it would be possible, within an alternate framework, to argue that educational research is original and is characterized by unique features, distinguishable from research in any other eld. Another layer of insight on the derivative question is provided by Deleuzes (1995) Difference and Repetition. From Deleuzes work we are prompted to ask, How different is different? Deleuzes Difference and Repetition can help by providing language for us to articulate the relationship of educational theory to other disciplinary theories as a system of complex difference. Finally, derivations are not all alike. I would like to suggest that some derivations may be a great deal more desirable than others. For example, we can see many theories of schooling that are now being derived from corporate structures and capitalist value systems. Thats one kind of derivation. It is perhaps quite another thing to derive educational theories from robust and exciting artistic, philosophical, and scientic breakthroughs. On these bases, I think the sticking point around the idea of derivation is that the originality-versus-derivation juxtaposition may not be the central issue. It may be an unproductive or false dichotomy. Rather, if we reframe it, the questions of what is properly educational theory can be focused on the specic criteria that are used to select from other elds, and the use to which those selections are put: What exactly do we choose to borrow from other elds, and to what purposes do we put those borrowings?

What Might Theory be Doing? Specically, what might theory be doing that would qualify it as educational theory proper? In order to make this point, I would like to posit a strategic distinction between instruction and education. As we know, instruction has the etymological root of struere/ structure, which means to pile or to build. Education in contrast, has as its etymological root educe, which means to lead out or draw out. Instruction builds; education draws out. I would like to position instruction as one of many possible technologies that might serve to be educational. Exceeding Educational theory might be exceeding. By exceeding, I mean pushing beyond current limitations, beyond what is known or imaginable, and toward the realm of the not-yet. Just to give you a brief idea of what Im getting at, here are a couple examples of different possible dimensions in which educational theory might be exceeding: Educational theory might cast itself as temporally forward looking instead of just retrospective, just as Deweys conception of reective thinking is forward looking rather than just retrospective. Educational theory might push past modern and analytical denitions and assumptions about what could qualify as theory and reach toward the horizons of what it is possible to think.

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Educational theory might exceed current spatial limits and boundaries around knowledge and discourse. Now to illustrate what I mean by exceeding, I would like to draw an analogy with the term carbon footprint as it is used in environmental studies. We can think about how environmental scientists have given us terminology that is forward looking, and has exceeded the previous conceptualizations of energy use beyond the elds of economics and engineering. The term carbon footprint, adds a moral/ethical dimension to the denition of energy. The idea of a carbon footprint exceeds the scope of more technical and instrumental denitions, and awakens an ethical realm of implications when we think about and debate energy use. By analogy, educational theory might be highlighting the pedagogical footprint of our work. Here is an example of what I mean by a pedagogical footprint. In dissertations and other research projects, I consider it a requirement for the research proposal to explain how the research project will be educational for everyone involved. I dont mean that we should explain just how the ndings will eventually benet the knowledge base for teachers, administrators, and educational researchers. Rather, I mean that every step in the research process could be educationally benecial: the interview protocols, the survey or testing instruments, and the style of writing can all be designed to be educational for all participants. In order to be properly educational, theory might be exceeding current limitations by holding us accountable to educational dimensions such as these: What if educational theory were to hold us accountable for our pedagogical footprint in research, teaching, administering, collegial relations, and policy-making? What if we held ourselves accountable for not only the educational implications of our ndings, but also for the educational implications of our research designs, protocols, methods, instruments, and style of writing? Educational theory might be inviting and inciting us to ask the following questions of our professional practices: What interview protocol will not only elicit the precise information that addresses our research questions, but will also educate us and the participants at the same time? What administrative structure for schools and classrooms will not only accomplish bureaucratic efciency, but will also effectively modeland thereby teach democratic relations? How can we write educational policy statements in such a way that the policies become informative, generative, and exemplary? What publication venues and what approaches to writing will be most effective in providing the most education for the most people most of the time? By imagining the term pedagogical footprint and suggesting that educational theory might be exceeding, I am trying to point to and make explicit the limits of our current educational theorizations as a means of recognizing, identifying, and challenging those limits. Generating Educational theory might be generating, and not only informing. In order to explicate this point, I will draw examples from rhetorical studies of genre and contrasting rhetorical studies with social sciences.

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Social science research in education is useful for providing us with thick descriptions of teaching and classications of the kinds of teaching that are possible. Along those lines, the most usual genre for social science texts is expository or informational. In the tradition of social sciences, we tend to read for information. Informational texts are instructional texts. Instructional/informational genres approximate the provider mode of teaching. However, in education we are not only interested in instructing and providing information. We are also interested in communicating: the rhetorical effectiveness of our teaching practices. There is a genre distinction between the social sciences and the humanities: on the one hand we have informational texts; on the other hand, we have generative texts. Generative texts are like poetry and art, which are designed to generate in us experiences, feelings, and sensibilities. The genre of generative texts is not to deliver/convey information, but rather to evoke and inspire ways of knowing. Informational texts go with instruction. Generative texts go with education. In my teaching, I have been trying to facilitate different kinds of reading and genre recognition. I try to facilitate and model how to read texts not only for information but also for inspiration. I try to help students pay attention to how the text affects them. As I learned from Rebekka Habermas, it works better in German: Was tut der Text? When I read a text, what effect does that text have on my sense of self? When I write a text, what effect does that writing have on my sense of self? Classically speaking, a major purpose of education was reading to provide inspiration, to stimulate the senses, and to generate spiritual experiences. I want to highlight the ways generative textsand not just informational textsmight be regarded as educational. When texts are generative, they can take a very long time to nish reading. While we are reading a generative text, we can easily become transported, go on ights of fancy, and visualize the world in a way we have never seen before. In generative reading, it is usual that we have to stop every paragraph or so to revel, reect, or imagine. A generative reading ignites some memory or connection or perspective. Generative readings, then, are those whose purpose is not only to inform, but also to inspire: to animate, activate, and galvanize. To generate understandings in us. So if we think of most theories as being expository or informative, we might reframe the role of theory, namely to think of educational theory as generatingas being generative. From this point of view, educational theory can be seen as that which generatesor that which facilitates the drawing out (educare) of knowledge, understanding, experience, and imagination. In my remarks so far, it will be apparent that this analysis does not provide a normative basis for evaluating theory or education. That is, my discussion does not assume that theory is a good thing or a bad thing. I have not provided any means by which we could distinguish an evil theory from a benecent theory, or a sloppy theory from an elegant theory. I have not provided any basis by which we might distinguish good education from bad education. In any case, it was deliberate on my part not to argue the normative aspects of theory or education. That would be a worthy project, but not one I am pursuing in this particular essay. Vibrating Educational theory might be vibrating. For this section, I begin with the observation that, at least in educational research published in English, I do not see very much connection between teaching and learning.

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Teaching and learning tend to remain largely separate areas of study. There is one AERA division for studying teaching (Division K), and a different division for studying learning (Division C). There are separate publication venues: some journals for research on teaching, and other journals for research on learning. It seems to me, anyway, that the relationship between teaching and learning is under researched and under theorized. By using the term vibrating, I am gesturing toward a way for us to conceptualize the gap between teaching and learning. To do that, I would like to put Luca Turins (2005) vibrational theory of smell together with Nel Noddings (2005) ethic of care. If we accept for the moment Luca Turins vibrational theory of smell, then we notice that his theory puts three of our ve senses into the vibrational category: Hearing is perception according to frequency of sound waves; Sight is perception according to frequency of light waves; Smell is perception according to frequency of chemical bonding waves. On this basis, we can think of vibration as being associated with resonance, as in sympathetic vibrations. Now I turn from Luca Turin to Nel Noddings (educational philosopher at Stanford). As most of you know, in Nel Noddings ethic of care, what matters is uptake. According to Noddings, there is no care unless the other person feels cared for. It does not matter that I intended to care for you, or that I acted in a caring way toward you. Rather, for Noddings, it only counts as care if you feel cared for by me. Its the uptake that matters. Not the intention or the merits of the act itself, but rather the effect of my actions on you. Noddings ethic of care presents us with a very particular kind of ethics: neither Aristotelian nor utilitarian. Now we put Luca Turin together with Nel Noddings. We might imagine educational theory, then, in terms of a vibrational version of uptake. We might want to argue that one criterion to qualify a theory as educational would be dened in terms of uptake. My position on uptake is closely related to Deweys theory of education as communication (but, perhaps because the term communication seems to be overused, for me, I prefer the term vibrational uptake in this case). So a theory might be regarded as educational to the extent that people get itget the theory and get the education. We can think of a theory as properly educational to the extent that it effectively generates uptake of resonant vibrations that exceed the given.

Closing In addition to all the things that theory has been doing, there are things that theory might be doing that could put a pedagogical footprint on perspectives, concepts, and ideas that come from other disciplines. We can also extend this resonant vibrational criterion to critical theories in education: As Gert Biesta has continued to remind us, Derrida wants to shake metaphysics by showing us that metaphysics is itself always already shaking. A critical theory might be regarded as educational to the extent that we get shaken up by it. A critical theory might be regarded as educational to the extent that more peopleand more kinds of peopleget it: regardless of ability, socioeconomic means, family background, ethnicity, culture, race, religion, age, sexuality, A critical theory might be regarded as educational to the extent that it generates more educational theories that more people get.

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The language of exceeding in educational theorising gives us alternatives to reproduction and the reproductive technologies that have been plaguing education. Reproduction stays within given connes; exceeding pushes our thinking to the limits and allows for creative and imaginative ights beyond reproduction. The language of generating gives us alternatives to authoritarianism and authoritarian versions of knowledge production. Generating opens up possibilities for more distributed, democratic creations of knowledge because the generative texts are not designed to deliver information authoritatively from the top down. Rather, generative texts are designed to educe in an open and distributed way. The language of vibrating gives us alternatives to essentialism (e.g., Platonic forms, Cartesian substances, or reied concepts). Vibrating is dynamic, changing, and relational. It occurs in the gaps between things. It depends on uptake and connections; it is not dependent on generalizability or replicability. Vibration reframes the issue of pedagogy so that teaching is no longer envisioned as a process of unidirectional delivery of authoritative information, but rather of dynamic, democratic, and experiential connections.

References
American Educational Research Association. (2009). Standards for reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research in AERA Publications. Educational Researcher, 38(6), 481486. Deleuze, G. (1995). Difference and repetition. New York: Columbia University Press. Noddings, N. (2005). The challenge to care in schools: An alternative approach to education (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Popkewitz, T. S. (2002). How the alchemy makes inquiry, evidence, and exclusion. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(3), 262267. Popkewitz, T. (2004, Spring). The alchemy of the mathematics curriculum: Inscriptions and the fabrication of the child. American Educational Research Journal, 41(1), 334. Stable http://www.jstor. org/stable/3699383. Turin, L. (2005). The science of scent. TED Talks. Available: http://www.ted.com/talks/luca_turin_ on_the_science_of_scent.html.

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