Investigating Relationships: Thoughts on the Pitfalls and Directions

Abstract

The feature article for this issue, entitled “(Re)Imagining Teacher Preparation for Conjoint Democratic Inquiry in Complex Classroom Ecologies ,” begins to carve out one aspect of the importance of relationship in the context of schooling. For the most part, the institution of schooling has ignored relationship. Instead, blaming teachers and students has become the modus operandi. Zero tolerance, accountability, among the many other sound bites in the politics of education categorically ignore the significance of relationship and its critical role not only in student—teacher dynamics, but also in all aspects of learning and personal growth. In fact, within the current political context, relationship is missing from the equation. Scripted curricula and requirements that teachers sign allegiance to these curricula, intensive teaching to the tests, the push for strict and specific national standards, and the desire to have all students working on the same “thing” (and not relationships of any kind!) at the same time, are all tremendous obstacles to developing interpersonal relationships in the classroom and to learning relationships. Of course, the notion of relationships is much more extensive than just those connections that exist between people. Relationships should be the material of what we learn and teach (Bateson, 1979/2002; Donaldson, 1992). Since we are interested in complex systems, we need to see relationships as the material of systems, as well as to see relationships as systems themselves. Although I believe the major focus of this article is of great importance, I do have some concerns. The authors have brought to bear a number of different paradigmatic approaches in crafting this research and the resulting article. In many cases, such a mix of paradigms can provide some intriguing insights. However, I found this paradigmatic mix problematic in this article. Complexity theories are, by definition, at opposition to