Learning and Desire

Abstract

The learner's desire to connect is fundamental to the learning process. Without the desire to connect to the other (teacher to student, student to teacher, student to student), or the desire to connect to the learning itself, it is difficult for effective learning to occur. Desire is a relation and its presence in the teacher-student relation is the subject of this paper. The lived experience descriptions from the authors' research reveal how the teachers' and students' desire to connect to each other is manifest in learning relationships as diverse as one-to-one, face-to-face teaching in a primary school, and computer- mediated learning in a tertiary course. To keep this desire alive, and so to facilitate effective learning, requires the teacher to be both attached, and detached, and to develop a teacher-learner relationship characterised by mutual learning and desire.