“See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me”:

What International Graduate Students and I Have

Learned about Being Together

Charles Scott
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
Presented on July 28, 2016
CRIE conference
SFU Vancouver campus
“See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me”:
Dialogical Learning and Being with
International Graduate Students

Charles Scott
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
Presented on July 28, 2016
CRIE conference
SFU Vancouver campus
“See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me”:
Joint Grabblings in Freire’s Student-Teacher
Contradiction

Charles Scott
Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University
Presented on July 28, 2016
CRIE conference
SFU Vancouver campus
Grabble intr. vb. To feel or search with the
hands, to grope about. Sometimes to grope
and grabble (cf. Dutch grapen en grabbelen).

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Grabble intr. vb. To feel or search with the
hands, to grope about. Sometimes to grope
and grabble (cf. Dutch grapen en grabbelen).

“Grabling all night in the dark … through

wild Olive Trees, and high Rocks.”
-- Plutarch, Lives, tr. T. North, 1676

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHwSzl5P2OA

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See me, feel me, touch me, heal me
Listening to you, I get the music
Gazing at you, I get the heat
Following you, I climb the mountain
I get excitement at your feet
Right behind you, I see the millions
On you, I see the glory
From you, I get opinions
From you, I get the story

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• From the rock
opera,Tommy.
• Tells the story about a
deaf, dumb and blind
boy, including his
experiences with life
and his relationship
with his family.

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• Using a theoretical framework to explain the
experiences of students and an instructor in
an M.Ed. Program for international students
who aim to be teachers of English

This Presentation
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• Using a theoretical framework to explain the
experiences of students and an instructor in
an M.Ed. Program for international students
who aim to be teachers of English

• Seeing our experiences and intersections

through a theoretical lens

This Presentation
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• Martin Buber’s
model of I-Thou
relationships

The Theoretical Framework: I and Thou

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• Martin Buber’s
model of I-Thou
relationships

• You and I come into

the fullness of being
through relationship

Martin Buber’s Theory of I-Thou

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• Martin Buber’s
model of I-Thou
relationships

• Lays the foundation

of the possibility of
dialogical
relationships
between students &
teachers for learning

Martin Buber’s Theory of I-Thou

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• Buber uses one
word to describe his
philosophy of
dialogue: meeting
• Meeting means to
reach out and
contact

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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 • In meeting, the other
becomes a Thou …
• And I become more fully
I, more fully human
• (“You are therefore I am”)

“All real living is meeting.”

– Martin Buber, I and Thou

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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• In meeting, the other
becomes a Thou …
• And I become more fully
I, more fully human
“Dialogue further requires an
intense faith in humankind,
faith in their power to make and
remake, to create and re-create,
faith in their vocation to be more
fully human.” – Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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• This is dialogue

‘Dialogue’ – New Zealand artist Doc Ross

Kind permission of Doc Ross Gallery464

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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• This is dialogue
• I define dialogue as
an ontological
orientation to I-Thou
relationships and
the realization of a
universal
relationality
“I And Thou” artwork of New Zealand artist, Colin McCahon
Auckland Art Gallery

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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• The use of Thou denotes something unique
and special

A Thou
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• The use of Thou denotes something unique
and special
• Thou denotes the sacred in the other and in
the relationship with a Thou

A Thou
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• The use of Thou denotes something unique
and special
• Thou denotes the sacred in the other and in
the relationship with a Thou
• A Thou is a spark of what Buber refers to as
the Eternal Thou

A Thou
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• The use of Thou denotes something unique
and special
• Thou denotes the sacred in the other and in
the relationship with a Thou
• A Thou is a spark of what Buber refers to as
the Eternal Thou
• A Thou manifests through relationship to an I

A Thou
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• The use of Thou denotes something unique
and special
• Thou denotes the sacred in the other and in
the relationship with a Thou
• A Thou is a spark of what Buber refers to as
the Eternal Thou
• A Thou manifests through relationship to an I
• A Thou is boundless, essentialess

A Thou
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 • The movement to
dialogue, to the I-Thou
relationship is what
Buber calls “turning to
the other”
• And it turns out it is not
so much a question of
what we can do but
Izzeldin
Abuelaish rather of what we can
be to create meeting.

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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 • We can be in
dialogue

• We can become
dialogue
• We are being with/out
Maurice Friedman, Buber’s biographer separability
and joint author, with his wife Aleene

Martin Buber’s Theory of I and Thou

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 Being and Doing
• Both inform the other
• Aristotle—Nichomachean Ethics
– Being/virtue is established through doing
– Lyre player becomes through playing the lyre
– Bricklayer becomes the art of bricklaying
• In Buber’s work, there are certain capacities or
‘virtues’ of dialogue that allow one, through
practice, to become dialogue

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Becoming Aware—“See Me”
• More than listening

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Becoming Aware—“See Me”
• More than listening
• Use all the senses, intellect, emotions, intuition

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Becoming Aware—“See Me”
• More than listening
• Use all the senses, intellect, emotions, intuition
• Become aware of the whole presence of the
student

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

36
 Becoming Aware—“See Me”
• More than listening
• Use all the senses, intellect, emotions, intuition
• Become aware of the whole presence of the
student
• Students appreciate being noticed for who
they are and trusted for who they are
becoming

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Confirmation—“See Me”
• Confirming the ontological, historical,
sociocultural, and political presence of the
student; a holistic confirmation of the person

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Confirmation—“See Me”
• Confirming the ontological, historical,
sociocultural, and political presence of the
student; a holistic confirmation of the person
• Legitimating the identity/identities of the
student as they are and as they are becoming

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

39
 Confirmation—“See Me”
• Confirming the ontological, historical,
sociocultural, and political presence of the
student; a holistic confirmation of the person
• Legitimating the identity/identities of the
student as they are and as they are becoming
• Trusting the student as a learner, as a human

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

40
 Confirmation—“See Me”
• Confirming the ontological, historical,
sociocultural, and political presence of the
student; a holistic confirmation of the person
• Legitimating the identity/identities of the
student as they are and as they are becoming
• Trusting the student as a learner, as a human
• Confirming, also, what is other, different

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

41
 Confirmation—“See Me”
• Confirming the ontological, historical,
sociocultural, and political presence of the
student; a holistic confirmation of the person
• Legitimating the identity/identities of the
student as they are and as they are becoming
• Trusting the student as a learner, as a human
• Confirming, also, what is other, different
• “You saw me”
The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities
42
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Being able empathically to apprehend what
the other is experiencing: to feel the other

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

43
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Being able empathically to apprehend what
the other is experiencing: to feel the other
• An extension of one’s own consciousness into
the life and lived experience of another

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

44
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Being able empathically to apprehend what
the other is experiencing: to feel the other
• An extension of one’s own consciousness into
the life and lived experience of another
• “Inclusion” because I apprehend both my own
experiences and those of the other

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

45
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Being able empathically to apprehend what
the other is experiencing: to feel the other
• An extension of one’s own consciousness into
the life and lived experience of another
• “Inclusion” because I apprehend both my own
experiences and those of the other
• There is both I and Thou

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

46
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Being able empathically to apprehend what
the other is experiencing: to feel the other
• An extension of one’s own consciousness into
the life and lived experience of another
• “Inclusion” because I apprehend both my own
experiences and those of the other
• There is both I and Thou
• Helps bring the other into presence
The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities
47
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Use of emotions and feelings to sense the
other

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

48
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Use of emotions and feelings to sense the
other
• Students appreciate the time and sensitivity
that allows them to know that another
understands, relates to, and empathizes with
their experience

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

49
 Inclusion/Empathy–“Feel Me”
• Use of emotions and feelings to sense the
other
• Students appreciate the time and sensitivity
that allows them to know that another
understands, relates to, and empathizes with
their experience
• “You’re not one of them anymore; you’re one
of us.”

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

50
 Presence–“Touch Me”
• I must engage as a full presence

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Presence–“Touch Me”
• I must engage as a full presence
• Authenticity—being myself

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Presence–“Touch Me”
• I must engage as a full presence
• Authenticity—being myself
• I place myself squarely in the here and now

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 Presence–“Touch Me”
• I must engage as a full presence
• Authenticity—being myself
• I place myself squarely in the here and now
• Buber writes about a young man who had
come to him with a deep existential need:

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

54
 Presence–“Touch Me”

“He had come to me, he had come in this hour.

What do we expect when we are in despair and
yet go to a man? Surely a presence by means of
which we are told that nevertheless there is
meaning.” – Between Man and Man

The Dialogical Virtues/Capacities

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 “Heal Me”
• Working in a
holistic fashion
with the whole
person:

The Outcomes
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 “Heal Me”
• The body and
somatics
• The emotions and
feelings
• Aesthetics
• Intellect
• Spirituality and the
ethical being
The Outcomes
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 “Heal Me”
• With hopes,
dreams, questions,
fears, ideals,
longings, passions
• Allowing them
every opportunity
to become more
fully human

The Outcomes
58
 “Heal Me”
• Working with
writing:
– See writing as a
‘technology of the
self’
– Writing as an
exploratory vehicle
for ‘care of the self’

The Outcomes
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 “Heal Me”
• Writing becomes a
vehicle for identity
work

The Outcomes
60
 “Heal Me”
• Writing becomes a
vehicle for identity
work
• We work with our
identities as
academics,
professionals, and
humans

The Outcomes
61
 “Heal Me”
• We create what
Buber calls a “sphere
of between”—being
in the abyss
• Freire’s ‘student-
teacher contradiction’
• We are now co-
investigators

The Outcomes
62
 “Heal Me”
• This is a new ontological
orientation
• Diverse epistemologies
and epistemic stances
welcome, nurtured,
developed, and grown
• We are becoming social
imaginaries

The Outcomes
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 “Heal Me”
• Students feel can
be creative in new
ways

• They feel they can

be more authentic

The Outcomes
64
 “Heal Me”
• They feel a deeper
integration
between the
academic,
professional, and
personal selves

The Outcomes
65
 “Heal Me”
• They feel a deeper
sense of
community
• Cognitive justice

The Outcomes
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 “Heal Me”
• The students have
been my teachers,
sharing themselves
and their lives with
incredible generosity
• They are open,
vulnerable, caring,
and creative

The Outcomes
67
 “Heal Me”
• The students have
been my teachers,
teaching me to see
the other as unique,
wonderfully different:
as Thou
• We have come to
share our humanity

The Outcomes
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 To them, my gratitude for that generosity
To you, my gratitude for your kind attention
The Outcomes
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