Creating tension: orchestrating disruptive pedagogies in a virtual school environment

This chapter considers how teaching and learning cross culturally inevitably disrupts or interrupts and disturbs teachers 'and students 'assumptions. Such educational confrontation can produce mind-opening opportunities or mind-numbing fear that can preclude learning. The teacher s challenge is to find a balance between harnessing disruption as an impetus for learning and creating a safe environment for constructive learning exchanges. Six stories illustrate some of the frustration, confusion, and insight that can arise from mis-interpretation, acontextual teaching, and pedagogical assumptions. The author discusses personal and pedagogical discoveries that emerged during an international social work education program with refugee teachers, health, and community workers from Burma living in exile on the Thailand Burma border (the border).Tensions between East and Western philosophies and methods of teaching called for processes to indigenize the Australian model of social work to the local cultures. The resulting exchanges of knowledge laid the ground for knowledge and cultural exchanges in interactive, unexpected educational processes.