Byron Hawk's discussion of post-techne and ecologies was reminiscent of Jenny Edbauer's "Unframing Models of Public Distribution: From Rhetorical Situation to Rhetorical Ecologies." In this same sense, the idea of post-techne and how it functions in ecologies (or perhaps Latourian networks?) reminded me of the Japanese concept of kaizen or "continual improvement." I would argue that kaizen should be applied to curriculum and teaching more often than it is, but that could get long-winded and wouldn't explain how it helps understand Hawk. Instead, I'll explore how the idea of kaizen itself may align with what Hawk is arguing for in terms of pedagogy.
If you're unfamiliar with kaizen, Wikipeidia provides a good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen. Kaizen's goal is continuous improvement and its process has been applied to multiple sectors in the business world. Kaizen looks to improve efficiency and reduce waste throughout the entire business process, from manufacturing to management, from technology to human capital. Even once improvements have been made, kaizen doesn't allow for complacency. It looks to improve on those improvements, creating the idea of continuous improvement.
It's the continual evaluation part of kaizen that made me think of ecologies. Kaizen never stops when implemented successfully. It continues to improve on improvements; it doesn't matter if those improvements concern human or technological components of the process. Hawk's use of Harmon seems to illustrates this well. "...all things show up only as something specific to a particular constellation or to a particular encounter. Readiness-to-hand, then, is not about technology's usefulness for dasein but the immediate relation of one thing to another thing. It does not subsume the world under dasein but puts dasein on an equal plane as a body in relation to all other bodies" (375). In looking to improve processes, kaizen doesn't care if it's improving on a technological or human component. It is evaluating the relation of one part of the process to another. Human components are on an equal plane with technological components."The key, as Harmon notes, is not that there are different things that operate differently in different contexts but that bodies, technologies, and texts are their context. There is no separation...There is only relationality--techne emerges only through enacting relationships" (378).
Hawk proposes to turn the idea of enacting relationships to pedagogy. I propose applying kaizen to pedagogy more often, in fact making it a norm. The article's abstract notes that "ecological and posthuman perspectives" have been applied to interface design (371). To me it seems that kaizen has been embraced by interface design more so than by pedagogy, tying into my argument for implementing it. Hawk explains that "A posthuman understanding of techne would mean teachers accept the ecological and ambient nature of rhetorical situations and begin to develop techniques for simultaneously enacting and operating in these complex, evolving contexts" (379). To me this sounds like implementing kaizen. Enact and put an improvement into operation after considering the ecologies at play. Reevaluate it in operation. Improve on the improvement. Repeat continuously to account for evolving contexts. "If techne is a technology...as well as a technique that operates through both conscious and unconscious means, then it becomes crucial to think about how techniques situate students within particular contexts with any and all objects" (379). So in using kaizen with respect to pedagogy, students are considered. They're part of the academic ecology. Hawk's use of Jim Henry as an example considers this well. Hawk notes that Henry planned to "remake, or rearticulate the discourses, the subjectivities, and the lines of power that emerge from them" (385). Henry took the constellation he was working with rearticulated how to approach it. He considered every component affecting and making up that constellation. Based on what we know about him, I sense he'll continually improve his process based on changes within that constellation. And I would argue that this parallels continuous improvement in the kaizen cycle.
Just as Hawk uses Tabeaux's argument in support of his position, it supports advocating for applying kaizen to pedagogy. "...the best advantage teachers can give their students is the ability to learn and adapt to new and changing contexts" (388). Applying Hawk's posthuman approach to pedagogy would do well to also consider kaizen.
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