A quasi-transcendental approach for removing hierarchical teacher-student relation

Abstract

In the present study, we adopt a quasi-transcendental approach in order to deconstruct the teacher–student relationship. According to the results of this study, teacher is the dominant pole and student is the passive one. This relation should be redefined in order to transfer students to the dominant pole. In this improvement process the authoritative role of teachers as information transferors and developers is changed to helpers and facilitators. The results of quasi-transcendental analysis of the teacher–student relationship indicated that the conceptual emergence of being a teacher and being a student are dependent and make sense together. Therefore, a teacher is essential for defining student status and vice versa. In this way, they are defined together and in the absence of one of them, the other one would be meaningless. As a result, students would assume a more active role in the educational process and they would deal with the discovery and construction of knowledge in an action-based process. Furthermore, the student would realize concepts such as the centrality of learner, cooperative learning, etc., more efficiently.

Introduction

In this paper we aim to investigate the current relationship between students and teachers using a deconstructive critical approach. In addition, we aim to reveal the hierarchical relationship between teachers and students and present the conditions for a more balanced relationship. In other words, we seek to show the nature of the existing relationship between students and teachers, the potential necessities for reviewing this relationship, and the possible relationship in case of revision.

Efficient and useful learning consists of various factors; however, one of the most significant elements of efficient learning is a close and cooperative relationship between teacher and student so that they can cooperate effectively in the learning process and move toward the learning goals. In other words, a teacher–student cooperative relationship and collaboration facilitate the learning process, bring about desirable educational results, give a sense to the status of both teacher and student, and also involve them in the learning process. In this regard, Dreyfus (2009) explains that a desirable learning process takes place when a proper, friendly, intimate, and close relationship is formed between teacher and student, while education will be interrupted if this intimate relationship deteriorates, which could result in the student’s weariness and their turning away from education.

However, we see that the current teacher–student relationship suffers from inadequacies and takes on a hierarchical and teacher-centered nature, with students playing a marginal and trivial role in contrast to the teachers’ major role. In such a relationship, teachers typically direct the learning process according to their own will and fail to take students’ needs into consideration seriously. Hua (2012) and Kalantzis (2006) consider such a relationship as the traditional relationship between teacher and student. They state that it is the teacher who enjoys the most active role, while the student’s role is defined around the teacher, giving them a limited scope of action under the teacher’s supervision ; hence, students do not manage to reveal their capacities and desires because they are limited to the framework established by the teacher.

Accordingly, this article is an attempt to criticize this relationship and propose a more balanced relationship between teachers and students so that students can take part in the learning process more actively and reveal their abilities. For this purpose, deconstruction could be employed as an instrument for reconsidering the hierarchical relationship between teachers and students, suggesting a more revolving, mutual, and justified relationship. According to Biesta (2001a), deconstruction is a critical approach to reviewing texts and various relationships, to reveal central/marginal and top/bottom polarities in hierarchical relationships in order to replace the current relationship with a more balanced and unbiased one.

Slee and Allan (2011) applied deconstruction in education in order to reveal the hierarchies, as well as the central and peripheral relationships, and suggested that discrimination and hierarchical relationships might emerge in educational policies or in the relation between factors involved in educational issues, and define the conditions for peripheral and central relationships. They noted that such circumstances facilitate the emergence of hierarchical relationship, resulting in marginalizing some factors involved in educational affairs while centralizing others. These researchers believed that these conditions could be effectively re-examined through deconstruction.

Therefore, it seems that deconstructive methods could provide a useful framework for reconsidering the existing relationship between students and their teachers for the purpose of reconstruction. This could help us to add the elements of collaboration and interaction to the common definition of the teacher–student relationship.

Defining deconstruction

There is little consensus over the exact meaning of deconstruction and it is difficult to define. Derrida referred not only to deconstruction, but also to “auto-deconstruction” (Biesta, 2001b), which adds to the ambiguity of the word.

According to Derrida (1991, 2008), this philosophical approach is neither a critical one, nor a kind of Kantian approach. He continues that deconstruction is not a method-based or a speech-based approach; it cannot be defined within a specific framework, nor considered as a theory. He believed that deconstruction could not be reduced to certain borderlines because it transcends the borders.

In the same vein, Derrida (1991) clarified that deconstruction is everything and nothing at the same time, because it is not limited to a special method, form, or style. He suggested that deconstruction could not even be characterized within a framework, because defining deconstruction in such a basic way would result in determining a nature for it, which defies the essence of deconstruction. Lucy (2004), whose comprehensive dictionary of Derrida’s terminology is considered as one of the most influential works about Derrida, explained that deconstruction cannot be defined within a certain framework. He added that the list of features not representing deconstruction could be infinite and referring to the things not representing deconstruction is easier than the things representing it.

In general, Derrida used deconstruction as an approach for studying as well as criticizing the hierarchical relationship. For example, Derrida (2005) deconstructed the hierarchal relation between speech and writing and held that the centrality and domination of speech over writing is the result of a mistake which had occurred since Plato and continued throughout the history of philosophy. He also mentioned the relationship between center and periphery, inside and outside, and states that inside should not be taken as central, basic, and major, according to which inside is oriented. Rather, it is the interwoven and mutual relation between outside and inside which assigns meaning to them. Thus, deconstruction could serve as a functional approach for reviewing the hierarchies, as well as center and periphery. On this basis, this approach could be effectively employed for studying the teacher–student hierarchical relationship.

Teacher–student hierarchical relationship

The relationship between students and teacher might be formed in several ways according to the actions and roles of these two parties. One of the most common forms of this communication is a kind of relationship with a hierarchical nature, which is characteristic of several educational systems. For instance, Kalantzis (2006) mentioned examples of such a relationship in Ancient Greece, as well as during the Middle Ages. Biesta (2016) referred to the contemporary examples found in educational systems within a traditional framework. And some researchers have highlighted this mode of relationship in the educational systems of specific countries. Yousefi et al. (2015) identified such a relationship within Iran’s educational system, and Hua (2012) confirmed the presence of such a relationship in China and Russia’s educational systems. In the same line, Trifonas (2000) highlighted some modern representations of such a relationship.

In the hierarchical form of an educational relationship, the teacher occupies the central status and his/her requirements are prioritized over the students’ needs. In this way, the teacher is placed at the center of the educational process and s/he enjoys supreme authority. In such conditions, students are marginalized in the educational process, deprived of involvement and pursuing their interests and needs, which could result in discouragement toward education and learning.

Kalantzis (2006) and Hua (2012) believed that this hierarchical system is rooted in Ancient Greece and Sophists’ trainings, asserting that the central role of teachers was as the transmitters of truth and educational materials, with a unidirectional form of communication, and that the marginal role of students originated in this period. This reduced students’ educational involvement to merely absorbing teachers’ words. On the other hand, teachers who enjoyed a leading and principal role communicated the knowledge unilaterally and hierarchically to the students.

As Smeyers and Wringe (2002) wrote, having the wrong attitude about teachers and students is one of the factors which contributed in the formation of the teacher–student hierarchical relationship. According to this common attitude, students are regarded as a miniature of adults who should learn adults’ skills in order to transform to an adult in the educational process. Accordingly, education is designed for them with teachers’ ideals in mind, so that they, as experienced adults, manage to transform students to another experienced adult and provide the backgrounds for their mature behaviors.

However, Ulmer (1994) criticized students’ submissive role in passively accepting materials and suggested that true education and learning include the production of new materials and innovation rather than the repetition of previously learned and established materials, which makes invention more significant than verification in the learning process. Consequently, he emphasized that students should be able to generate theories besides consuming previous works. There should be a path toward innovation for them so that real education and learning is realized and students find suitable opportunities in order to practice recreation and innovation rather than mere repetition.

Nevertheless, the teacher–student hierarchical relationship is challenged by the changes that necessitate more collaboration in educational communications. For instance, according to Shayegan (2001), in the modern world that is characterized by constant changes, the traditional hierarchical relations are replaced with vertical relations of a multidimensional nature, and there is no room for dominant thoughts. In the previous periods, hierarchical relations commonly existed between different events, resulting in the formation of one-sided, vertical and top-down relations where the dominant thoughts moved to the passive thoughts.

However, the inevitable changes in the modern world have replaced the vertical relations with horizontal and non-hierarchical relations. For instance, students are no longer considered as passive receptors in the modern teacher–student relationship; rather, they use their initiative and enjoy a quietly active role in the classroom. Kalantzis (2006) argued that nowadays students play roles rather than merely observe; they have assumed active and dynamic roles different from that of conventional passive listeners, and have the authority to participate in leading the educational process. According to Kalantzis, the origin of this transformation is the substitution of the traditional educational system with the modern progress-oriented and constructive systems of Dewey and Montessori. She added that the dialogue between teacher and students and cooperative learning has replaced the conventional one-way relationship and nowadays students play a leading role in the educational process.

Therefore, it is high time to dismantle such hierarchical relationship in the educational setting and provide backgrounds for a more mutual and communicative relationship so that students are able to fulfil their potential abilities. This goal might be achieved through a deconstructive review of the teacher–student relationship and with the proposition of a non-hierarchical relationship for realizing the aforementioned goals.

Eliminating the teacher–student relationship using deconstruction

With regard to the discussions presented, it seems necessary to reconsider the teacher–student relationship with the purpose of creating the backgrounds for transforming the nature of this relationship. Employing deconstruction examining education, Bagheri Noaparast and Khosravi (2011) mentioned that deconstruction could be considered as a convenient framework for studying the hierarchical relationship. These researchers believed that deconstruction could also facilitate the process of finding alternatives and providing conditions for a more interactive relationship. In this paper, we deconstruct the teacher–student relationship using the steps applied by these researchers, which are presented in the following.

Considering the teacher–student relationship as a research text

The first step in applying the deconstruction is to focus on the text or context that is supposed to be examined. It is worth mentioning that text here is not written text but any (political, economic, cultural, social) context which could potentially establish the backgrounds for cultivating the relations among phenomena. In this step, it could be said that text in the field of education is actually the educational system in which the relations between two basic components of the learning (i.e. teacher and student) are formed.

According to Ghaedy (2006), in this educational system the teachers enjoy a superior position while students hold a subordinate position. Ghaedy highlighted the inadequacies of teachers’ philosophical and educational knowledge, their false attitude towards their superior role in transferring information, and their lack of familiarity with the potential innovations in the teacher–student relationship. He added that this dominant role of teachers orients students as passive receivers of the data provided by the teachers. Therefore, it could be concluded that the current text (i.e. the educational system) needs fundamental changes in order to keep up with the changing world due to the inadequacies revealed in educational systems. In the past, the responsibility of transferring knowledge to the students was taken for granted by teachers who used to employ traditional methods including dictation and lecturing (Biesta, 2004; Gibson, 2006).

In the hierarchy between teacher and students, the teacher typically acts and deals with presenting the knowledge while students merely absorb the presented materials. Therefore, communication of the material takes on a one-way nature from teacher to students, which preserves and stabilizes the hierarchical relationship. In such a context, the basic concepts of true learning, including the students’ activism and creativity, are disregarded and students are transformed into passive elements.

Kalantzis (2006) referred to some political, cultural, and social factors involved in the formation of such hierarchical relationships and asserts that these kinds of relationships are formed in societies which suffer from top-down structures and leadership where submission and homogenization are encouraged and rewarded. In such societies a good citizen is defined as obedient, submissive, and passive. Kalantzis suggested that in these societies that are different from contemporary democratic societies the governing classes enjoy great authority over other classes. Therefore, the hierarchies are maintained and modeled in the educational relationship between teacher and students and a consolidating relationship exists between them.

As another example, Hua (2012) underlined the social and cultural structure of the Chinese community and asserts that the relationship between the emperor or governing organizations and general public in this society has brought about top-down circumstances which have penetrated into schools and affected teachers as well as students. As a result, a form of relationship came into existence in which students are passive listeners, whilst the teachers enjoy an all-encompassing authority and control over the educational relationship.

As the discussions and examples indicate, a set of political, social, cultural, and other conditions have been involved in shaping the teacher–student hierarchical relationship. However, these undesirable conditions need to be changed and replaced with those of a balanced relationship in order to add more cooperation and activity to students’ roles in the educational process.

Reconstruction of the opposite poles

Following constructivists, Derrida believes that each text has opposite poles with dominant/passive relations which should be discovered and considered. In other words, the subject under study is evaluated and the relations of different components are investigated through the critical and inverting approach of deconstruction. Peters and Burbules (2004) refer to the issue of reconstruction of the opposite poles as one of the basic principles of deconstruction and believe that the hierarchical relations of different components should be reconstructed in each deconstructive attempt. Accordingly, each text has bipolar orientations which should be broken down and reconstructed to pave the way for more justice.

These opposite poles are mentioned in Derrida’s works and the works of other thinkers who used deconstruction for investigating educational concerns, and there have been some attempts to eliminate them. Referring to the bipolar opposition of speech and writing, Derrida states that in western philosophy speech is considered as presence, and is indicative of the presence of the two sides of the speech; hence, it is prioritized over writing which reflects the absence of the two sides of speech and is considered as a copy of live and present speech.

Along the same vein, Bagheri Noaparast et al. (2010) believed that the relation between speech and writing is reflected and reiterated in the teacher–student relationship where teachers are regarded as playing the key role in the educational process and are supposed to give speeches and lectures. In such settings, students who adopt a marginal role must take notes, write down the teacher’s words, absorb the materials, and accept the one-way flow of transferred knowledge uncritically. In these circumstances, the teacher, who has a leading role in education, is placed in the dominant pole, while the student is placed in the passive pole.

Given that the learning process is a cooperative process which necessitates the cooperation of different parties involved, it seems that the passive role of the students could damage the real process of learning. Ulmer (1994) spoke of the educational process affected by the hierarchical approach and stated that true learning, with creativity as an integral part, is ignored in such a process and that students only reflect and reproduce previously taught materials, thus undermining the underlying grounds for creativity.

On the other hand, the teachers’ dominant and authoritative role might discourage students throughout the educational process and interfere with learning. Bach et al. (2007) pointed to the critical and marginal roles of the teacher and students, respectively, as well as the disadvantages of such relationships, and asserted that the unidirectional transfer of knowledge causes disinterest and boredom for students.

Biesta (2016) also emphasized that in spite of the potential benefits of one-sided patterns such as lecturing, they reinforce passivity in the students’ role. Thus, a new relationship must be sketched in which students assume a more constructive and effective role in the learning process.

Examining the contamination of the poles

This step is indicative of the fact that although we could not draw decisive borders between the poles, the poles are intermixed; hence, they should be examined with regard to each other. Considering one pole while disregarding the opposite pole seems useless, and they play an indispensable role for each other. Derrida’s (2008) indication of the relations between in and out, speech and writing (Biesta, 2004), and a painting and its frame are relevant and imply the dependence and contamination of the poles. As for the relation between speech and writing, Derrida explains that in presence-oriented western philosophy and under the effects of Platonic metaphysics of presence, speech has acquired a central position and gained dominance over writing.

In the works of Socrates, Plato, Rousseau, and other great thinkers, speech is considered as a live process in which the two sides convey the flow of concepts in face-to-face conditions and they manage to resolve potential ambiguities or misunderstandings through the advantages provided by face-to-face speech. Derrida disapproved of this traditional confrontation and sought to remove it and replace speech with writing. Furthermore, he revealed how writing, with its different characteristics from speech, had undeniable effects on the emergence of speech.

Derrida (1986) opposed dualism on this basis and proposed the contamination and invagination of the poles instead. He discussed the invagination and convolution of binary concepts and added that two concepts should not be demarcated and separated, and that most binary concepts are tangled and thus cannot be demarcated. Derrida (1986) also referred to the convolution of different concepts and the lack of boundaries between them, and emphasized that this kind of oscillation was his research interest. Accordingly, the two poles of teachers and students also cannot be viewed as isolated from each other. Rather, the necessities of the modern world and interlinking roles put teachers and students in a constant face-to-face, intertwined, and balanced communication. In such conditions, teachers and students affect each other and no pole occupies a superior position in affecting the other in a top-down or one-way relationship.

According to Burik (2009), Derrida criticized the unidirectional teacher–student relationship and believed that teaching does not merely involve transferring materials and expecting the students to report the acquired materials. As Derrida clarified, in order to realize convolution and invagination, teaching should be considered as a process in which students are recognized and where they learn with the teacher’s assistance. The teacher is not supposed to merely transfer knowledge and ignore the students’ activities; rather, due to the contamination and invagination of roles, s/he could both instruct and learn from the students. In other words, the teacher needs the students for teaching as well as learning, and could learn from them along with his/her teaching and establish a reciprocal process of teaching and learning that has the potential to transform the hierarchical relationship and realize each role’s convolution.

Contextualizing the text

In this step, centralizing the text and disregarding the prior context which encompasses the text are rejected; and there should be an emphasis on the contextualization of the text in the specific cultural, political, economic, and social contexts, as well as the dependence of the text on the context. Therefore, we need to consider the role of these factors and the prior contexts in the formation of the present conditions. Consequently, the researchers’ task is to reveal factors involved in the formation of the current hierarchies and the unilateral teacher–student relationship between.

Reviewing different viewpoints towards the role of teachers and students in education and the effects of prior thoughts on the construction of this relation, Smeyers and Wringe (2002) referred to the attitudes of thinkers in the 18th and 19th century, such as Kant and Herbart, who believed that children were a miniature of adults who should try to be like adults. Thus, teachers had the responsibility to transfer knowledge to the children’s mind and form their personality. This attitude highlights the effects of traditional thoughts in the construction of the current centrality of the teacher and the authoritative role, defined for teachers in the forming of students’ personalities. Along the same line, Ghaedy (2006) refers to Hegel’s views and effects on the establishment of authority for the teachers. In addition, he states that educational thoughts which are under the influence of Hegel’s philosophical ideas take for granted that students are under the teacher’s domination. In other words, the teacher, regarded as a knowledgeable, sovereign, and dominant figure, is prioritized over the students. This leads to teachers occupying a superior position, while students assume an inferior position.

Nevertheless, there are more underlying factors involved in the stabilization of the hierarchical relationship. Slee and Allan (2011) have investigated the socio-political and even cultural aspects in the development of European Union strategies to create a multi-cultural union. These researchers suggested that this union also suffers a hierarchical view in the estimation of the population of its members. This has created a hierarchy among different cultures in which some cultures preside over others and there is a dominant/non-dominant pattern of relationships. They declared that in the policies of this union the needs and requirements of immigrant races are disregarded and these groups are understood in terms of native Europeans’ criteria. For that reason, the immigrants must embrace Eurocentric values in order to have a typical life in the European Union.

The penetration of this hierarchical viewpoint to classrooms would result in the formation of hierarchical relationships, where some students are regarded as marginal groups whose needs and requirements are typically ignored. Thus, it is evident that the teacher–student hierarchical relationship was not established suddenly and recently; prior contexts as well as the ideas of former philosophers can be mentioned as determining factors, and the traditional attitude of considering the teacher as the dominant figure has amounted to today’s teacher-centered classes.

Inversion of the opposite poles

In the previous sections, the hierarchical relations were identified and the contexts of their formation were specified. In this step, there is an attempt to eliminate the unjust relations. Peters and Burbules (2004), who highlighted the significance of this step of deconstruction, wrote that if this step is not followed, deconstruction will not be materialized and the inversion of the opposite poles is one of the basic prerequisites of deconstruction.

The modern society, which is under the influence of current and emerging technologies and information society, offers various sources of learning among which the individuals could freely choose according to their personal needs. The introduction of concepts such as knowledge society, life-long learning, e-learning, virtual classes, cooperative learning, and learner-centered education imply that traditional methods of learning have been changed, and this proves the need for improving these methods. As a result, the superior role of teachers in the process of learning is questioned and disrupted.

Examining the current conditions of the educational system critically, Hussey and Smith (2010) referred to the widespread and constant changes in the modern world. They argued that nowadays technology has created a situation in which more people have the opportunity to acquire science and use technology to find alternative ways for traditional education where they have learning problems or inaccessibility to educational institutions. They maintained that in such circumstances the relationship between teachers and students has been transformed and there is a need for bringing about more freedom for students. In this way, a more student-centered system is created that dismantles the former hierarchy. Having this in mind, Smeyers and Wringe (2002) maintained that in the modern era, transferring data from adults to youths is not valued anymore. These conditions have resulted in changes in roles and norms due to the lessening influence of adults on youths, and necessitate youths’ independence in knowledge acquisition.

According to the presented discussions, the teacher–student hierarchical relationship should be eliminated in order to invert the opposite poles. There should be conditions where the former hierarchical relationship is replaced by an interactive and collaborative relationship between teachers and students. This makes role convolution possible and, in this way, each role complements the other. In this manner, a mutual, cooperative, and balanced relationship is created between them, instead of the top-down pattern, and this paves the way for students to actively participate in the learning process.

Gibson (2006), in his model called the construction of knowledge, described this new condition. According to this model, unlike the past, teachers are not able to convey content individually and bring the student under their control. But they should provide conditions in which students construct their own knowledge and take part in the learning process actively. He believed that in this model the teachers hold a supervisory role instead of dominating the stage. In this way, they manage to help students take responsibility for their learning and the construction of knowledge, instead of receiving educational content passively. He also believed that the emerging model of constructing knowledge is more compatible with the contemporary conditions in the world, which is significantly inspired by modern technologies.

The discussed backgrounds and factors have facilitated the removal of hierarchical patterns and, in this way, the roles adopted by teachers and students become complementary by nature. This would lead to the formation of an interactive, collaborative, cooperative, reciprocal, and convoluted pattern of relationships. Therefore, the conventional top-down pattern has been replaced with a non-hierarchical pattern which includes greater capacities for educational settings.

New conceptualization

Since the relations between two poles and previous structures are transformed and improved, there is a need for new conceptualizations in order to define the emergent relationship in terms of relevant concepts. Therefore, we cannot talk about the unique role of teachers and the passive role of students as receivers of information any more. However, these improvements necessitate defining the new roles adopted by teachers and students.

Kalantzis (2006) refers to the traditional teacher-centered educational structures and argues that this relationship has undergone major transformation and now adopts a more flexible and mutual nature. According to Kalantzis, in such an atmosphere the students perform a more dynamic role while they are provided with the chance to engage in mutual dialogue with the teacher. Kalantzis contended that such circumstances have transformed and improved the conventional roles played by the teacher and students by adding the element of contribution to the new complementary roles. In other words, in a society where the transfer of knowledge and wisdom is not valued and individuals are supposed to take responsibility for constructing knowledge, students are not expected to wait for teachers in order to learn and fulfil their self-motivated learning (Gibson, 2006).

In line with the aforementioned issues, knowledge society is a newly proposed concept which implies that individuals possess the capacity for knowledge construction independently or through new technologies (Barnett and Standish, 2002). For this reason, we could say that, in some cases, students today have overtaken their teachers because they possess greater knowledge. On the other hand, the teachers who have lost their role as the knowledge transmitters have to adapt to the new roles. Therefore, instead of learning and transferring information, they should teach students “how to learn” and improve the conditions for self-motivated learning. In such circumstances, teachers should provide the students with data sources in order to facilitate cooperative and learner-centered learning.

In this respect, Edgoose (2001) highlighted the concepts of said and saying in the new conceptualization of the teacher–student relationship. In the first concept, the teacher presents the materials while students receive what them. Today, this concept is no longer efficient and has been replaced with the second concept in which the teacher considers learning as a dynamic process and encourages students to take responsibility of their own learning.

In this manner, teachers and students work together to make learning happen, thus leading to a condition where students take responsibility for their own learning, as well as discovering and constructing their own knowledge. On this basis, new elements such as the construction of knowledge, the cooperation between teacher and students in the teaching-learning process, the stronger role of learning over teaching, assigning the learning responsibility to students, and focusing on the students’ innovations as well as a dynamic learning process have facilitated the transformation of the traditional top-down relationship.

Quasi-transcendental analysis

In this step considerable attention is devoted to the possibility or the impossibility of the aforementioned conditions in the current situation while taking the new conditions and replacement of the dominant and passive poles into account. Inspired by Husserl, Derrida proposed and employed the concept of quasi-transcendental analysis (Bagheri Noaparast et al., 2010). He argued that in Husserl’s transcendental analysis only the conditions for the possibility of the subject matter’s emergence were taken into consideration. For instance, Husserl applied transcendental analysis to concepts such as geometry and tried to understand the formation of basic concepts for early geometry thinkers. These basic concepts, which are involved in the formation of geometry, could be considered as the conditions for the possibility of the geometry emergence. However, in his quasi-transcendental analysis, Derrida considered both the conditions for the possibility and the impossibility of the subject matter.

In this step, we need to focus on the opposite poles as a pair in the emerging conditions in which the differences between the dominant and passive poles open up possibility or impossibility for the conditions of the passive pole. Derrida presented examples for quasi-transcendental analysis and tried to reveal the distinctions between common writing and speech, unity and division, and in and out, through this approach.

Biesta (2004) stated that Derrida addressed the hierarchical relationship of speech and writing, and explained that speech should not be prioritized over writing which used to be considered as a copy of speech. It is worth mentioning that considering speech as the presence and reflection of truth, and writing as the signifier of absence or a copy of speech and presence, is a false idea shaped under the influence of Platonic metaphysics. Biesta rejected this binary relationship and asserted that not only does speech have no authority over writing, but it is writing that provides the possibility for speech. Writing, which has features such as the transposition of time and place, provides conditions for constructing meaning and if it did not exist, speech would also be meaningless. The speakers could construct and communicate meaning when they distinguish words from each other and create transposition.

On the other hand, writing is the condition for the impossibility of speech and we cannot consider speech and writing as identical. As previously mentioned, speech represents the presence of a speaker and a listener, and in the case of ambiguity, they can clarify the meaning through direct contact. But the speaker and the listener are absent in writing with no direct contact. Hence, this distinction between speech and writing provides the condition for the impossibility of speech, and if speech, which makes sense with the presence, represents the absence like writing, there will be no possibility for its existence.

Now, through the quasi-transcendental analysis, the teacher–student relationship in terms of newly formed relations and students as the dominant pole should be taken as the condition for the possibility and impossibility of the teacher. As the aforementioned example of the distinctions between writing and speech indicated, the differences between students and teachers make the condition possible for the teacher. These differences—students acting as learners who should benefit from their teacher’s knowledge and experience—clarify the limits of the teacher and the impossible condition of his/her role.

The deconstruction of the hierarchical patterns of the relationship between teacher and student shows that present students construct and acquire knowledge by assuming a more active and effective role, while the teacher becomes a helper and a guide who simplifies the learning condition for students. Therefore, teachers do not occupy the conventional and central position, and they are not “representative of the reality” anymore. As a result of these differences between students’ and teacher’s roles, students are considered the condition for the possibility of teachers and act as a necessary “supplement” for the formation of the teacher’s roles as guide, helper, and facilitator.

On the other hand, the new concept of being a student as an active constructer of knowledge in the learning process emerges as the condition for the impossibility of the teacher. In this way, these different roles differentiate the teacher from the student. Now, students are the constructors of knowledge who are active in the learning process and, considering the newly proposed roles for teachers and students, it is impossible for teachers to merely transfer knowledge.

Conclusion

Derrida is one of the prominent authors who proposed guidelines and general comments on the application of deconstruction. Referring to the parallelism of deconstruction and Marxism (Choat, 2010), he pointed out that deconstruction as a critical point of view was not totally impartial but could subtly intervene during research. Derrida sought to criticize and transform the hierarchical structure of different research texts through deconstruction in order to achieve more dynamism and justice, which would consequently pave the way for innovation and changes in thought.

Besides analysing oppositions such as presence/absence, writing/speech, in/out, Derrida dealt with overturning these oppositions. As a result, he proposed concepts such as the deconstruction of the metaphysics of presence, “grammatology” instead of semiotics, and the contamination of inside/outside.

Derrida tried to find the same bipolar concepts in the relationship between teacher and student and showed that the teacher was known as a symbol of reality while students were passive receptors of the reality in the traditional education. Features such as the dominant role of teacher in communicating materials, emphasis on the teacher’s knowledge and students’ submission to this superior knowledge, and one-sided teaching methods such as lecturing, indoctrination, and memorization, signaled to the dominant role of the teacher and the student’s receptivity.

According to Derrida’s arguments, this bipolar confrontation should have been eliminated. Derrida’s insistence on overturning the relations between teachers and students could be found in his interest in the concept of “other and other of the education”, in which the teacher possesses a superior role and students have been ignored as a result of wrong educational policies, biases, and the teacher’s interest in playing a dominant role and regarding students as passive elements in the educational process. Consequently, a student’s creativity, which could be taken as an inevitable component, used to be overlooked.

In this way, by overturning the conventional role of students as receptors and teachers as the transferors of knowledge, new roles have emerged for students as active cooperators and teachers as facilitators. In this new pattern, teachers are supposed to establish the required backgrounds for the learning process to happen and pave the way for the formation of a knowledge society and the construction of knowledge by students.

This paper sought to deconstruct the teacher–student hierarchical relationship, present examples proving its existence, and describe the conditions that have led to its formation. In addition, it was an attempt to discuss the necessary conditions for the interactive and cooperative relationship between teachers and students. Therefore, the hierarchical relationship is undermined and new, cooperative, complementary, and more student-centered relationships are formed. The new concepts in modern, mutual, and cooperative educational relationships could enrich and improve the new educational policies followed by educational planners. Some of these concepts include relying on unknown issues and their discovery, the role of students in the construction of knowledge, teaching and learning at the same time, avoiding the one-way communication of knowledge by teachers, placing emphasis on students’ collaborative role in the construction of knowledge, assigning learning management to the students, focusing on the process rather than the end product of learning, encouraging cooperation and interaction between teachers and students, and creating a more intimate atmosphere.

We could also highlight teacher–student cooperation in which the teachers regard the students as influential members of education and facilitate their role-playing. In such a context, teachers assign new responsibilities to students because the deconstructive displacement of roles increases cooperation between teachers and students. In his way, teachers’ central role and students’ marginal role are balanced and improved so that they complete each other.