Teaching as poking: towards a pedagogy of disruption and trickery

This paper proposes the imagery of ‘teaching as poking’ as complementary to the imageries of teaching as pointing and touching and against the theoretical background of teaching as attention-formation and teacher authenticity. This paper first puts Biesta and Todd in dialogue to set the ground for the metaphorical conceptualizations of teaching with physical acts. Next, this paper discusses the limitation of capturing teaching through the acts of pointing and touching with particular reference to the notion of violence as latent in efforts to educate, which opens up the possibility for teaching to be captured by the imagery of teaching as ‘poking’. Finally, two key qualities of teaching as poking (i.e. disruption and trickery) are discussed in relation to the aforementioned theoretical trends to reveal both its potential for enriching educational practices and the dangers inherent in enacting teaching in the form of poking.