Article Response

The Pedagogical Significance of the Look , by Patricia Paradis

Since I started teaching almost a decade ago, many conversations with colleagues have centered around classroom management, teacher-student relationship, teacher presence, and the tone set by a teacher among his or her students.  Patricia Paradis’ article, The Pedagogical Significance of the Look, briefly considers one small but important aspect of the teacher-student relationship: eye contact. 

Beginning with the admonition, apparently from teacher education courses, to “look at the students when you teach them”, the author clearly identifies a progression of three questions; “what could be difficult about (a meeting of eyes between teachers and students)?”, “what (is it) we mean when we speak of eye contact?”, and “What is it about eye contact that could make it significant for pedagogy?”  While the title suggests the preeminence of the third question, most of the article is a considered response to the first two.  The author begins with a dictionary definition of “eye” and “contact” then uses these two words as a jumping off point for a thoughtful reflection on the connection that people can experience while making eye contact.  The subtitle “I Contact” indicates the author’s interest, not in the physical act of looking at one another, but in the deeper connection, awareness, and intimacy experienced by two people when their eyes meet; “I cannot separate my look from me just as the other cannot separate his look from himself.”  Paradis points out the difference between looking “at” someone’s face and looking “into” their eyes.  The “willingness to open in a shared look” implies a trust that allows another to see deeper than the physical presence.  Looking is also understood as a form of language distinct from speech, a communication that “seems to go beyond what many others – words, handshakes, smiles – can do.” 

Unfortunately, only the very brief final section deals with pedagogy, and only in a rhetorical way.  The single anecdote in the article is about the author’s relationship with her mother, and bears little resemblance to the many kinds of eye contact that occur daily between teachers and students.  Many possible examples of teacher-student eye contact come to mind; a look that assesses a student’s understanding of a lesson, a look that questions whether a teacher is being serious, a look that reprimands a student for inappropriate action or language, a look that expresses empathy with a student’s personal situation, a look of forgiveness of the teacher not having assignments graded on the expected date, a look to express the understanding of a shared joke.  A series of anecdotes reflecting different types of eye contact would go a long way in addressing the pedagogical significance of eye contact. 

I feel that the article would be stronger if it addressed only one question, preferably a revision of the third question leaving out the word “could”. (What is it about eye contact that makes it significant for pedagogy?)  Most of the article - the thoughtful discussion of personal connections through eye contact - would still provide a useful lead-in to this question.  And I wonder whether a series of anecdotes might illustrate the reciprocal nature of the student-teacher relationship?  Rather than a relationship that depends on “the desire of the student to want to be affected and led by the teacher and the desire of the teacher to lead”, we might see more of the leadership roles that students can play, and we might see, between teachers and students, more of the mutual trust that exists in all strong and healthy relationships. 

An Incidental Final Comment:

Here is the opening quotation from the article, presumably from someone who was interviewed by the author: 
Eye contact? Oh, yes. All the time. They taught us that in our education courses. You're supposed to look at the students when you teach them. If you can't do that, you're supposed to aim your look about an inch above their heads. That way, they think you're looking at them. It's very important.

I am bewildered, really.  The notion that prospective teachers need to be instructed to “look at” their students seems bizarre.  Is there such a gulf between us that we need formal instruction to simply look at one another?  Where else would a teacher look when she is addressing her class?  The thought of being a student in a class where the teacher has to look above my head gives me chills.