Because the first year of university education is for students a concentrated point of turbulence (in the form of failing, dropping out, changing courses or degrees, making changes in future plans and present priorities, and suffering anxieties about the same), it has been the focus of much study by education specialists, along the lines of "What are we doing wrong?" and "How can we do better?" "The teflon degree" is a metaphor derived from the image of a mess-preventing armour plating. The assumption that turbulence in the first year is naturally a bad thing fits by extension with an idea that turbulence, mess, and so on are to be avoided. Better than avoidance would be the construction of a system which would make it impossible for such things to happen. "The teflon degree" is a fantasy of a program of study that one can embark on, knowing what one will do and how one will do it, and then slide through, essentially unchanged, "augmented" by the acquisition of skills and qualifications. This thesis is a critique of the conceptual underpinnings of such an ideal. It is also an evocation of the qualities in university education which are obscured or harmed by the pursuit of such an ideal, foremost among them being love. I argue that love is not a sentimental afterthought, but an essential component of all genuine learning. This critique is carried out through the conceptual framework established by the work of Gregory Bateson in cybernetics. The empirical component of the thesis is drawn from interviews with individual students; these are intended both to illustrate and to make concrete the theoretical concerns which are its primary focus. With Bateson, both an anthropologist and a philosopher, as my central theorist, I have drawn on both anthropological and philosophical texts in the development of my argument, including Buber, Durkheim, Gaita, Hegel, Murdoch, Sartre, Serres, Simmel, and Weber.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/187413 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Hungerford, Guy, Social Sciences & International Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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