Two way learning? A critique of East/West approaches to teaching and learning .

1. Two way learning? A critique of East/West approaches to teaching and learning. Toni Dobinson School of Education

2. Internationalisation International education has made a significant contribution to Australia. It has grown to now be our third largest source of overseas earnings ... The Hon Julia Gillard MP ( May 2009)

3. Statistics • In Australia -Annual export figure for educational activity of $18.3 billion in 2010 (AEI, 2011) • $10.4 billion (59%) in Higher Education • Top 10 contributors were: China (24.3%) India (14.6%) Republic of Korea (5.7%) Malaysia (4.6%) Vietnam (4.5%) Thailand (3.8%) Indonesia (3.3%) Nepal (3.0%) Hong Kong (2.8%) Brazil (2.0%) Other (including Saudi Arabia – 28.2%)

4. Transnational Educational Programmes • In 2009, 320,970 international students studying with an Australian institution of higher education • 100,492 (31.3%) of these studying offshore (AEI, 2011)

5. Impetus for this paper • MA (Applied Linguistics) course taught transnationally in Ho Chi Min City. • Exchange of ideas about teaching and learning between Vietnamese lecturers and Australian lecturers on same course. • Literature describing approaches to teaching and learning in terms of an ‘Orientalist Binary Paradigm’ (Takayama, 2008). • Discourses on Orientalism and ‘othering’

6. Organisation of the presentation • Approaches to teaching and learning • Social and theoretical discourses on Asia and ‘othering’ • ‘Spilling over’ of these discourses into research on ‘Asian’ approaches to teaching and learning • Ways forward for teaching and learning in the Asia Pacific region.

7. Approaches to teaching and learning

8. Mechanistic out – organismic, Humanistic in (Rogers, Maslow, Tennant, Bloom, Freire • The learning society (Schon, Hutchins, ) • Transformative learning –– instrumental learning out – communicative learning in (Mezirow) • Learning =action collectively or individually, emotional , spiritual (Mezirow, Daloz, Cunningham, Boyd) • Experiential and informal (workplace) in – classroom out (Boud, Eraut)

9. Othering: Orientalism Essentialism Postcolonialism

10. ‘Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient’. ( Said, 1978, p.3) Orientalism-almost a European invention…one of its deepest and most recurring images of the ‘other’ (Saud, 1978, p.1)

11. Orientalism and Essentialism The European is a close reasoner; his statements of fact are devoid of any ambiguity; The mind of the Oriental , on the other hand , like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry The Oriental generally acts, thinks and speaks in a manner exactly opposite to the European (Cromer, 1908) ‘selective amnesia’ ‘denying of creativity and originality’ ‘continued essentially the same’ (Tavakoli-Targhi, Malcolm) Women – demure, sensual, subservient Men- cold, inscrutable, cruel

14. Spilling over into reports of Asian approaches to learning? EARLY : • reproductive (rote) • dependent on teacher • pragmatic/surface • passive – listen and obey (Noesjirwan, 1970; Chan, 1999; Ballard, 1989)

15. Confucius versus Socrates • Passivity, obedience, lack of creativity or critique, pragmatic (surface) learning, instrumental learning attributed to Confucian East. • Questioning, evaluating, doubting, critiquing (deep) and communicative learning attributed to Socratic West (also deriving from Dewy (1899, 1916)

16. Setting the record straight- Confucian influence • Confucius urged his students to sift his teachings and criticise his statements: 11:4 → Hui is no help to me at all. He is pleased with everything I say. • He didn’t necessarily endorse teacher/student dependence: The teacher does not have to be more knowledgeable than the pupil; and the pupil is not necessarily always less learned than the teacher (cited in Cheng, 2000, p. 4) • Dialectic→Ways of thinking and socio-political structures - Confucian attitudes a product of time of stability – Taoism, Buddhism approaches different – less stable (Geyer, 2003).

17. Setting the record straight- Socratic influence • Learning (surface/deep) in Western universities dependent upon nature and year of course (Kirkpatrick & Mulligan, 2002) ‘Deep’ approach takes years to develop – even for academics (Haggis, 2003) • Memorisation does not preclude deep understanding (Kember, 2000). • Critical’ thinking often just means mirroring lecturer’s ideas (Webb, 1997; Sandeman-Gay, 1999) • Asking Asian students to critically think in university settings - are we really just asking them to imitate our preferred learning style? This is Behavourist not organismic (Kegan, 1994).See Mahbubani quote • Not always safe for students to articulate critical thought e.g. Indonesian student

18. Continued • Can have a teacher centred approach which produces independent learners (Brookefield, 1985a) • Western learning theory and teaching practices = ‘grand narrative’ , ‘hegemonies’ that don’t fit reality of most learners in mass educational systems (Haggis, 2003) • Mental colonisation – power and privileged versus feelings of worthlessness, thinking incongruent with ‘essence of being’ (Apsland, 1999). Quote Mahbubani • Learning a product of its time (Foucault, 1972)

19. Conclusions • Recent research has laid ground for dismantling ‘Orientalist binary paradigms’ (Takayama, 2008) often based on ‘othering’ and Orientalist notions. • Asia much more confident now – rapid economic development. Quote Mahbubani, 1998. • Lecturers educated at post grad level in Western universities can occupy ‘the Third Space’ (Kramsch, 1993a, 2009) – intercultural competence • Are we yet again heading in different directions though? Japan/USA (Takayama,2008)

20. RECOMMENDATIONS • More focus on social/ theoretical discourses, history and cross cultural awareness in teacher education (pre-service and in-service) and knowledge of recent empirical research • More collaborative (across national borders) qualitative research by practitioners in the field recognising power relations , ethnocentricity etc • Joint delivery of transnational courses with onshore and offshore teachers/lecturers; recognition of offshore teachers superior intercultural competence = learning opportunities for those in East and West. • More symmetrical dialogue – Asian teachers and Australian teachers which goes beyond national differences and binary paradigms and is situated in a globalised world.

21. THE END

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