Instrumental or Dialogic?
Which kind of learning relationships are needed for today's world?
A Quote
Buber1 argued that people have two basic orientations toward others and the world: instrumental or dialogic. To approach another instrumentally means to treat that person as an object, as a means to advance one’s own interests. To approach another dialogically is to enter into a relationship of respect, mutual concern and solidarity. When we adopt an instrumental attitude, we relate to others partially - invloving only those parts of our and their selves that are relevant to the transaction (for example, institutional roles and/or economic interests). The mutual concern in a dialogic relation is all-encompassing, and relates to both our and the other’s whole beings. Dialogue, according to Buber, is unplanned and indeed unplannable, a matter of grace rather than calculation.2
A Thought
Be honest. Most kids experience instrumental relationships at school. And perhaps, historically, this has been fine. Order, hierarchy, and obedience were important because the world, at least on the surface, was ordered and hierarchical. To get by, there was a defined body of knowledge that kids needed (to go with the social capital they had). So, to be successful at school, kids needed to focus on the sage, listen, be attentive, and do the work. The path was certain.
Do we still live in this kind of world?
The World Economic Forum doesn’t think so.
I don’t think seeing education as a transaction is useful in the kind of world that’s described in that report. Why? Because in doing so the wrong kinds of things are emphasised: are not grades seen by our societies as a form of cash that students can use to purchase their imagined future?
We all know who gets blamed when students don’t get a big enough pile of academic cash. (Come on teachers: you’ve got to keep your side of the deal! That’s your role.)
And yet, so many students get the cash and flop. So many teachers are overwhelmed by the pressures of their institutional role.
An Action
What relational orientation is dominant in your classroom: instrumental or dialogic? Is it what you want? When I ask that, what I’m prompting you to think about is whether it promotes the kind of learning that is required for the world we are all living in.
Think: what do I need to
amplify, and
shift
to get the relational orientation, and thus the kind of learning that’s needed?
Martin Buber (1878-1965) was an Austrian philosopher and theologian.