voices

teacher conversation as counterpoint

It is interesting to consider the implications of Kamler’s distrust of the metaphor of voice. For instance, how would you see this idea with respect to broader notions of professional conversation or dialogue through narrative? It might be interesting to follow the way that Kamler’s research pursues these ideas in coming years.

Edward Said, writing as part of a larger discipline of cultural studies, is perhaps most famous for his post-colonialist work, Orientalism, first published in 1978. He is interested in language and power and the way dominating cultures have oppressed and silenced less dominant cultures in all socio-political contexts throughout the world. His work is pertinent, here, if we are interested in the liberating potential of teacher voices, in professional conversation and in narratives, against those political or administrative forces that would seek to dominate or even silence the voices of teachers in education debates.

Whereas Kamler draws attention to the metaphorical connections of voice to the human body, Edward Said thinks of voice in musical terms, and alludes at one point to voice in socio-cultural interactions as part of a ‘polyphony of voices.’ Said later invokes the metaphor of ‘counterpoint’ to represent the ways in which language, in any one communicative act, is always a play of voices connecting and responding to other voices. Parr and Bellis (2005, in Doecke and Parr’s Writing = Learning) further consider the potential for professional learning of this sort of musical discourse. They quote the definition of ‘counterpoint’ from a musical dictionary:

The term ‘counterpoint’ … is used to describe music in which the chief interest lies in the various strands [or voices] that make up the texture, and particularly in the combination of these strands and their relationship to each other and the texture as a whole.
(Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed.,vol. 2)

If you have written some teacher narratives – perhaps you have written about a classroom episode – it may be interesting to reflect on the different ‘voices’ who are ‘speaking’ to you (and within you) in order that you may speak to, communicate with your reader. On the other hand, it’s worth thinking about the way readers respond to and construct meaning with your narrative. A reader might find some aspects of your story familiar, or perhaps a sharp contrast to her/his experience or setting. The extent to which he/she connects with this narrative is influenced by various intersections in terms of experience. But it is also richly influenced (mediated) by the interconnections in terms of discourse and the way different language makes sense to different groups of people. The very richly layered and dialogic nature of language, means that all constructions of meaning derive from the dynamic interchanges that a metaphor such as a musical counterpoint brings to mind.

Are there other metaphors for ‘voice,’ such as might be emerging in your own teacher narrative, that you find meaningful or interesting?

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	If standards could be used to promote genuine professional development, improve knowledge of teaching practice and raise the professional standing of teachers, I welcome them. If all teachers could be involved in the kind of collaborative, productive development of literacy teaching standards we were involved in with STELLA – fantastic. Robyn Perkins 2000