Journal of Applied Hermeneutics (Feb 2014)

The Case of the Disappearing/Appearing Slow Learner: An Interpretive Mystery

  • W. John Williamson,
  • James Colin Field

DOI
https://doi.org/10.11575/jah.v0i0.53227

Abstract

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This interpretive essay attempts to demonstrate the potential good that might come from approaching a hermeneutic phenomenological study as a hard-boiled detective story in the tradition of Raymond Chandler. The authors attempt to explain the hermeneutic warrants for such an adventure—that is, for how and why a topic like the categorization and treatment of students in the public education system as “slow learners” might be approached as a detective story. The parallels between detective fiction, Chandler’s work as a noir novelist, and hermeneutics are drawn out. Attention is drawn to the ground of our interpretive relationship with the world in Heidegger’s notion of the “as structure” of interpretation. A case is made for seeing the hard-boiled detective story as a hermeneutic venue for shaking up commonsense understandings of how we have come to see and do education with those students designated as slow in their learning.  Â

Keywords