On the Pedagogy of Suffering

This text articulates how and why suffering can be pedagogical in character and how it is often key to authentic and meaningful acts of teaching and learning. This collection threads through education, nursing, psychiatry, ecology, and medicine, and blends together affinities between hermeneutic conceptions of the cultivation of character and Buddhist meditations on suffering and its locale in our lives.

David W. Jardine is Full Professor of Education in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. He received his PhD from the University of Toronto and is the author of the recently published book Pedagogy Left in Peace. Christopher Gilham is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is a former junior high/elementary school teacher and consultant. His work is focused on helping cultivate spaces in school settings where typically marginalized and codified students and their educators can thrive together. Graham McCaffrey (RN, BA, BN, PhD) is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary. As a member of the Canadian Hermeneutic Institute since its inception, he has also been a Principal Investigator and a Co-Investigator on several hermeneutic research studies.

Contents: David W. Jardine/Graham McCaffrey/Christopher Gilham: «Just This Once»: An Introduction to the Pedagogy of Suffering – David W. Jardine: «You’re Very Clever Young Man» – Graham McCaffrey: Idiot Compassion – Christopher Gilham: From the «Science of Disease» to the «Understanding of Those Who Suffer»: The Cultivation of an Interpretive Understanding of «Behaviour Problems» in Children – Judson Innes: A Pocket of Darkness – David W. Jardine/Graham McCaffrey/Christopher Gilham: First Fragment: Breaking the Gaze – Avraham Cohen/Heesoon Bai: Suffering Loves and Needs Company: Buddhist and Daoist Perspectives on the Counselor as Companion – W. John Williamson: Codes – Christopher Gilham/David Jardine/Graham McCaffrey: Second Fragment: Thoughts on «Breaking the Gaze» – Jodi Latremouille: My Treasured Relation – David W. Jardine: Some Introductory Words for Two Little Earth-Cousins – David W. Jardine: This Is Why We Read. This Is Why We Write – Graham McCaffrey: The Elision of Suffering in Mental Health Nursing – David W. Jardine/Graham McCaffrey/Christopher Gilham: Fragment Three: Bringing Suffering into the Path – Alexandra Fidyk: A Black Blessing – Judson Innes: Time – David W. Jardine: Quickening, Patience, Suffering – W. John Williamson: Smart Ass Cripple – Gilbert Drapeau: The Comfort of Suffering – Christopher Gilham/David W. Jardine/Graham McCaffrey: Fragment Four: «And Yet, and Yet» – Alan A. Block: «Neither They nor Their Reward» – David W. Jardine: «Nobody Understood Why I Should Be Grieving» – Alan A. Block/David W. Jardine: «God’s Sufferings Teach God Nothing»: Some Emails – Christopher Gilham/David Jardine/Graham McCaffrey: Compassion Loves Suffering: Notes on a Paper Never Written – Nancy J. Moules/David W. Jardine/Graham McCaffrey/Christopher Brown: «Isn’t All Oncology Hermeneutic?» – Allan Donsky: «They Are All with Me»: Troubled Youth in Troubled Schools – Alexander C. Cook: Happiness in Bricks – Christopher Gilham: Suffering «Like This»: Interpretation and the Pedagogical Disruption of the Dual System of Education – David W. Jardine: Morning Thoughts on Application – David W. Jardine: In Praise of Radiant Beings.