Chapter 5 Perceptions of Difference and Equality
5.2 Valuing Difference: “Inspiration and Ideas Will Collide”
5.2.1 Introduction
From among my interviewees’ reflections, there were several narratives that identified how they valued the concept of difference when it emerged within activities associated with teaching QOED. These narratives came into view during my data analysis process, as difference was not a foregrounded concern when I began undertaking my field research (as
discussed in Section 3.3). As such, I did not have the opportunity to ask the interviewees to reflect further on how they considered difference. These narrative accounts nevertheless provide a useful indicator that the QOED teachers interviewed responded positively to the ways that learners exhibited difference within their responses to creative tasks.
In this section, I first demonstrate how my interviewees expressed an interest in the concept of difference. Based on having observed a range of ideas emerging from students, my
interviewees conveyed their appreciation of the novelty of these ideas: they considered how a difference in perspective and values might promote diverse interpretations.I then explore how they expressed a desire for the students to value these differences in each other, and their satisfaction when they observed students doing so. This leads into their reflections on why students value differences in each other, and how this contributes to a broader valuing of diversity.
5.2.2 Valuing Difference: “Accident or Surprise”
As one of my interviewees reflected, the process of simply being with others in the creative process can disrupt habitual patterns, and that this disruption can alleviate the tedium of a task. She explained, “I think practicing something alone is boring, being together will stimulate each other’s passion, particularly through a more playful attitude”. Her reflection suggests that when learners work together, play and possibility thinking might more readily emerge and replace a more functionary approach to a task. Another interviewee further rationalised that differentiation is an inevitable outcome of gathering people together in a shared endeavour, “I think that many people together will have diverse ideas”. The notion that the emergence of different ideas is a valued dimension of social interaction when carrying out a task was further emphasised by yet another interviewee, who explained, “I think when different students are together, their inspiration and ideas will collide with each other to create new things”.
The following narratives illustrate further how this conceptualisation of difference is valued.
Here, interviewees reflected on tasks that enabled difference to emerge. One way that my research interviewees illustrated their appreciation of difference was through the way that tasks prompted unexpected interpretations. An interviewee gave a vivid account of this, identifying this experience of surprising differences as valued within QOED:
I divided the students into three groups, one playing the willow tree by the road, one playing the willow tree by the lake, and one playing the willow tree on the grass. This was designed to prompt them to explore different feelings. The suggestion I gave was
‘What is your state when the breeze comes? Strong wind? Crazy wind?’ Different movements appeared in the three different scenarios, and the students danced happily.
When I turned around, I saw a different action than I imagined: there were three boys lying on the ground, and the other girls were all around these three boys. I asked,
‘What are you doing?’ The three boys said, ‘We are the lake water’. I thought it was really great at the time, and this was called [by Yisheng Lv] ‘accident or surprise’.
Quality-Oriented Education Dance is very open, especially welcoming these accidents and rationalising them. I said, ‘Your lake water is amazing. What happens when there’s a gentle breeze? A stronger wind? A crazy one?’ They followed my prompts and acted accordingly. This is guiding along their lines of thought. I didn’t expect lake water to appear in my previous design. My original lesson design was about willows and wind, which had nothing to do with the lake water. They should all be standing willows in a circle.
In this reflective narrative, the teacher acknowledges that the valuing of difference can require a letting go of expectations, particularly her expectations of the prescribed lesson plan. This resonates within the ancient Chinese philosophy of Lao zi, who reflected “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be” (以其终不自为大,故能成其大) (Chinese Text Project - Dao De Jing, 34, https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing/ens). This can be interpreted in the QOED class context as a teacher’s willingness to diverge from prescribed lesson
expectations in order to allow difference to emerge. As the interviewee noted, this experience of creativity through a “surprise” or “accident” is a valued dimension of QOED (Lv, 2014).
However, the use of such terms might seem paradoxical within an educational climate seeking to deliberately facilitate the emergence of creativity through the bringing together of differences. While serendipity may play a part in the emergence of new ideas, this is different from a teacher purposefully introducing the circumstances in which such creative ideas might emerge.
In support of this sense of a teacher’s purposeful teaching of creativity, this interviewee went on to reflect on the importance of the teacher in advancing this valuing of the “accident” or
“surprise” among the student cohort.
At that time, a girl in the group asked, ‘Why don’t they stand up?’ There appeared disagreements within the group. Some students wanted to make lake water, while others wanted to make willow trees. At this point, my intervention was very
important. I said, ‘The water in your lake is very good’. This way, other girls will feel
that this is possible. I think my affirmation of these boys at the time helped their collaboration. I don’t think anything is impossible. And at that time, the students were all very immersed in thinking about what would happen to them as lake water and others as willows. I think these choices are very personalised things for students and sharing them allows students to grow with each other.
This narrative suggests that the teacher not only valued differences in ideas, but also valued the ways that sharing and pursuing these differences can prompt learners to value each other.
She recognised that the learning environment can often expect conformity however, and so her intervention as a teacher involved giving permission for difference to occur, and actively celebrating it. This sense of deliberate purpose for a teacher may require require confidence in their ability to rationalise such a pedagogic decision, which in turn can require an
awareness of broader theories of difference and the valuing of diversity to be embedded within QOED theorisations of creativity.
5.2.3 Different Interpretations: “Grandpa’s Appearance”
Another interviewee reflected on how the source of different interpretations can be
ideological. While this further emphasises the value of interpretive difference within QOED classes, it does not necessarily identify how a valuing of difference allows such ideas to emerge. She reflected on a particular activity in a QOED class:
I said, ‘Everyone, you can imitate what you think is the most beautiful thing in your mind. You can imitate heroes, plants, animals or people around you, as long as you think it is a beautiful image’. The girls generally imitated flowers, butterflies, fairies and so on. Most boys imitated heroic characters. One boy left a deep impression on me, however. He performed a set of actions similar to hoeing in the countryside, and all his classmates began to laugh at him. Then I asked him, ‘What did you do? Can you tell everyone?’ He said, ‘Teacher, I imitated my grandfather’s hoeing
movements’. I said, ‘Why do you want to imitate Grandpa’s hoeing movements?’ He said, ‘I think Grandpa’s appearance during work is the most beautiful one’. So I remember that class very deeply.
While the task may appear to prompt learners to adopt more common ideological constructs of “what is beautiful?”, the teacher’s experience of surprise at this student’s interpretation is clearly significant for her. Perhaps distinctly from the previous narrative, this surprise extends beyond the novelty of the creative expression that the student brings into the task; it includes the ideological motivations of the student: he considered his grandfather’s manual labour in the garden as beautiful, and worthy of re-enactment as an expression of beauty. It is the
learner’s rationalisation of beauty that further differentiates him from his classmates and leads the teacher to express an appreciation of difference.
5.2.4 Different Ideas: “Moving Like a Jellyfish”
Another interviewee expressed her satisfaction when she observed students appreciating each other’s strangeness. As she pointed out, the strangeness of a boy’s height was made even more strange by his jellyfish actions,
I played the music of ‘Cannon’ for students. ‘Deng deng deng deng....” This music had different intervals in time, with slow and fast. The time was from half notes to something. There was such a change. One student was very happy to hear this music, and this 1.9-meter-high boy began moving like a jellyfish on the ground. Another student was very happy to do this action with him immediately. Their whole group found this scene fun. They were laughing at them, but at the same time felt so fun.
Their group then had a very high mood. At that time, I felt that they liked the action very much, and that it fitted well with the music. I said, ‘You can choose this kind of action for development’. They were very happy and immediately adopted this action.
Then I said, ‘You can do some changes on this basis’. Because the action itself was funny and more interesting for them, then they made various changes to the action, such as how to roll on the ground, how to complete it while standing; it might start like this, later change into different actions.
The significance of this teacher’s appreciation of the learner’s physical appearance within the creative outcome is worth keeping in mind, as the next section discusses teacher expectations of normativity regarding dance learners’ physiques. This interviewee further noted the significance of a teacher in this situation: the role of the teacher here was to emphasise the value of strangeness and of exploring strangeness. She considered this to be a critical intervention that offered learners a feeling of permission to not conform to more expected ways of dancing.
5.2.5 Conclusion
While my interviewees did not specifically articulate a valuing of difference as a central reason why they valued QOED, such a valuing might be inferred from their reflective
narratives. This valuing of difference was transformative: it shifted not just their expectations of how to teach a QOED class but also those of their identities as teachers and of learners.
Another interviewee unpacked this concept further to show how QOED allows for a more dialogic relationship with and between learners:
When I really listened to others’ ideas, their ideas became better than I had imagined.
Their ideas had provoked me to think about my own logic. I started to consider, ‘am I right in this way? If not, then what do I think about their ideas?’
This suggests the significance of differences among peers within a collaborative task, particularly in terms of offering greater challenges within learning. This connects to the Confucian quote emphasising the importance of perpetually challenging learners to think further on any issue: “Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous” (学而不思则罔，思而不学则怠) (Analects, 2.15). This learning through collaborative dialogue emphasises the importance of both listening and thinking. It also suggests that through active engagement with ideas and discussion, learners can deepen understanding, gain new insights and come to value different perspectives. This process of having ideas, but then allowing ideas to be released and re-imagined, is critical within the process of building collaborative relationships in which a sense of social interdependence shifts from a competitive to a cooperative mindset (Johnson & Johnson, 2009): the process of a shared exploration becomes more important than winning or losing in an otherwise
competitive learning environment. Achieving this state of being is not easy, as it can require a very deliberate action from teachers (Rowe, et al., 2021).
Such a professional transformation can be difficult however, due to the habitual practices associated with teaching and learning that my interviewees had built through their life journeys as both students and teachers. In the following section, I examine these habitual mindsets in more depth, and consider how these may impact the implementation of QOED. It is hoped that by clearly identifying these mindsets and their impact, teachers may be better positioned to reflect on how they might further transform their teaching practices to better achieve the aspirations of QOED.