Teacher as Prophetic Trickster!

Jim Garrison!
EDUCATIONAL THEORY ! Volume59 Number1 2009 ! University of Illinois!

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Teachers take on a variety of powerful cultural archetypes, moving uidly through them during the course of a day. As a profession, perhaps due to the complexity inherent in teaching, perhaps it can only be understand poetically. Teacher as champion of economy, agent of social justice, nurturing caregiver, critical intellect, are just a few of the many archetypes that are applied to teachers, or they self apply. Another archetype would be that of that the Trickster.!

In Mythology, Tricksters are devious shape shifters that have a profound affect on culture. They break down the structures that hold society together. They wander. They make nefarious deals, redraw boundaries, rewrite laws, and show the insanity of our rules. After they have done this, they create and re-create a world in which they view as ever-evolving, imperfect, and constantly unnished. Their logic is paradox. They are epitomized by the Hindu Krishna, Chinese Monkey, Myrddin of the Celts, the Greek Hermes, and the West African Esu.! !The Greeks dened discourse (language, logic, etc) as logos. They believed that without logos, the world would slip into chaos. When the logos starts to oppress the people of a culture, it is time for a Trickster to enter and challenge the system. The trickster does this by attempting to push the logos into chaos, and causing us to look criticality at our system of logos and ourselves.!

In teaching and education, most teachers enter the profession to obtain creative autonomy and the psychic rewards (human connection to students, etc.) of teaching. When the bureaucratic system of education threatens those desires, teachers tend to burn out and leave the profession; or, they take on the role of Trickster to help them cope with the hyper-rationalized world of educational bureaucracy. The closed system of education creates much waste, and Trickster teachers try to work with the trash of that system.!

come and play...

Status Quo

!Part of the bureaucracy is a one-size ts all approach to learning that includes standards, benchmarks, tests, power, and measurement. Teachers resort to trickery to defend their students from these forces (that they see as oppressive) and defy the institutional logos. They re-conceptualize the purpose of education to be about freeing minds, dreaming dreams, experiencing the imagination of the world. They point towards the spiritual world, and to the plentitude and complexity of innite possibility. They create opportunities for students to enter that void. The teacher trickster does this by rst releasing desire from the constraints of conventional constructions, and then creating new paths that lead to the innite. Once detached from the familiar, the mind may reawaken creative possibilities.!

The Infinite

!Ex inclu de; d amples o e leavi ng it nying the f teacher s (na open stude auth m t o o n r t i s a s t l uden to ex inten es in bra brea p t ki ck tb lo in them ng down re writin terpreta ehind re ets) ope tio ni g th a t comp each eac e teache in a volu n (Rose ding and ng the pl n n e h r d the b licating th other (E -student tary club blatt); cre etermini ntitude o n f ro o x, b s w e a ut cr ir denit me); bre le by giv ith no st ting spa g true me innite p eatin i o c a a g ne ons (Mich king dow ing contr ndards o e outside aning of ssibility w bo o t xes i ie). In e n the co l of the c r outcom of the s exts, and a y n n wh ich th ch case, ventiona lass to th es (Ohan stem for e stu l logi ian); the t e rul c de e es of the o achers ar of hyphe nts and nate ld wo e d wo letting rld d not just rd o no t apply hinking o s and utsid .! e

Thanks for playing

Tanuki wants to know; how do you (or do you) play trickster in your life as a teacher?