Teaching without explication: pedagogical lessons from Rancière's The Ignorant Schoolmaster in The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Emperor's Club

Abstract

How can one teach what one does not know? Most film depictions of teaching follow a satisfying (and it would seem endlessly entertaining) Aristotelian dramatic structure. But what if the teacher does not know what she is summoned to teach? And what if there were a theory of pedagogy that celebrated a teacher's ignorance rather than her authority (power, position, privilege, pre-established role) or expertise (knowledge, experience, judgment)? How or why, in Jacques Ranciere’s parlance, an ‘ignorant schoolmaster’ may have a talent for teaching – that is, an efficacy and influence on student learning that trumps antecedent knowledge – becomes a locus of inquiry in these pages. Several of Wes Anderson’s films can be said to include an ignorant schoolmaster, or ‘New Master’. Arguably, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) features the highest achievement of expression of the ignorant schoolmaster in Anderson’s work: M. Gustave teaches without knowing, teaches inadvertently as he learns what needs to be taught. By way of contrast – that is, as a way of illuminating M. Gustave’s representative qualities as an ignorant schoolmaster – I will also consider the character of the professional, authoritative, and knowledgeable preparatory school teacher, or 'Old Master', William Hundert in The Emperor's Club (2002).