Educational Seduction : A critical analysis of the teacher as seducer in aneducational setting

Abstract: Problems with discipline and student engagement in Swedish classrooms is a burning issue. According to the data provided in the article, "Improving schools in Sweden, an OECD perspective", a significant number of students find it difficult to concentrate during a lesson as there is "noise and disorder during lessons" (Schleicher, 2015, s. 35). This negatively affects the quality of the lesson taking place and poses a challenge to classroom teaching. How can a teacher make sure that the students participate in a lesson in a productive way? Can the teacher find ways to engage the students so that they are active participants in the lesson? In other words, can the students be educationally seduced to love the lessons? This thesis attempts to explore the concept of educational seduction, with the teacher as the seducer and the students as the ones seduced in an educational setting. What makes a teacher special? How is a student (or a group of students) charmed by his/their teacher? Is it the outlook or style of the teacher that makes her different from others? Or is it the knowledge or content that she delivers makes her special? Or is it the love and kindness that the teacher exhibits makes her so appealing? What makes this teacher so different from all the other teachers that the students find it mesmerising? Or, in other words, what constitutes an educationally seductive teacher? The argument I propose is that teachers need to be wholesome, and since it is nearly impossible to be a wholesome personality, I argue that one can strive towards the 'ideal of wholesomeness' in order to be an educationally seductive teacher.