"creating environments that tolerate ambiguity"

This phrase comes from Keith Ballard, probably the strongest (and yet implicit) influence on the development of my teaching philosophy. In his work there is an emphasis on performativity, drawn not only from feminist theory, but from a broader engagement with social justice and the complex act that is teaching and learning.
When I am thinking about media ecologies in the classroom I am thinking of ways to describe a sustained engagement with, and respect of, students and their desires for a critical creative practice that is balanced with the need to interrogate cultural and media practices as well as engage the ambiguities of technology.
Yesterday when talking with Robyn, we framed this in terms of positionality, something that Haraway repeatedly stresses. Haraway says: we must see from somewhere. Seeing from somewhere is always ambiguous, for it is not about knowingwhat someone else sees, but about knowing the investments of our own position.
Key to this is thinking through what I mean when I think about establishing a collaborative working environment. Teaching in the LAB is conversational, critical and directed. One-on-one meetings often spiral out becoming group discussions that return to individual works and experiences. The door is always open, and students from other sections are joining us.
I have just read Max van Manen's essay "The Language of Pedagogy and the Primacy of Student Experience" (1999) in it he discusses being attentive to what might seem to be mundane classroom experiences, and revisiting them through the eyes of the student. Nothing is ever truely mundane, and often decisions have to be made quickly. Van Manen discusses relational values - something that is very familiar to me through Nicolas Bourriaud's work on relational aesthetics - art is an exchange. Teaching is an exchange: both occur with constructed environments. The LAB is a constructed environment... it is relational, ambigious, respectful and engaged. Key to Van Manen's discussion are some case studies of assessment and feedback.
Crucial is an analysis of outcomes based assessment and a kind of commodity culture. I think I'll read this through again and use it to begin to address this aspect of my presentation.
Somewhere in here I'd like to reintroduce the ethics/ aesthetics relationship.
Van Manen "The practice of teaching can be regarded as a living recommedation for showing what teaching is (or should be)". (19) - reflexivity.