Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/74389

This paper examines the notion of transformation, frequently used in educational discourse, and searches for a framework for understanding the exceptional artworks of students under my guidance. The contributions of Satoji Yano, a pedagogical anthropologist, are among the few works that have examined the extraordinary aspects of transformation in educational contexts. Yano's article on Developmental Education and Generative Education (Yano, 2000) merits careful reading as it highlights the boundary of existing educational and learning theories that limit our understanding of transformation due to their narrow focus on Ego's mastery and control over self and world. Yano's paradigm draws upon Bataille's anthropology, which serves here to clarify the notion of transformation on a human historical scale. In this paper, the precise point of extraordinary transformation remains unstudied, but is suggested to resides in an extended understanding of the self that includes the holy, parlous and phyletic layers of our mind.