A turn in teaching and learning: The transnational classroom in an international setting

Abstract

The authors consider the challenges of teaching Theatre and Performance Research in a transnational classroom. They inquire into the ways in which students and teachers are equally in a position to recognize and acknowledge the diversity of academic cultures and to learn to operate within them. They demand from all the participants of the classroom a lot of patience, sensitivity and self-esteem which also has the potential to reward with a learning experience that has unique dimensions both in breadth and depth. Using the experiences of teaching the MAIPR programme at the University of Helsinki, the authors reflect on how it was important to create situations where the ability to listen proved to be as or maybe even more important than the ability to talk. A pedagogy which avoids academic colonialism where a strong and hegemonic academic culture would be privileged as the only correct one demands the ability to recognize and carry out good academic practices because of their quality and feasibility and not because of internalized power structures and cultural dominance. This means both the willingness to give up one’s own habitual practices and the courage to maintain and promote some of them when they prove successful.