Jellyfish and Transformative Pedagogy

1. Pedagogy of Jellyfish Salad

Jellyfish salad. The meat is often cut into strips and mixed with cucumber and chili pepper to make a popular dish often served as an appetizer at celebrations in Taiwan. Growing up, I ate it at several wedding banquets. I remember it on a small white plate encircling the petals of a bright purple orchid set in the middle. The dried jellyfish looks like translucent skin, so Chinese menus call it cold jellyfish skin. Live jellyfish look like gelatin, but the meat has a texture somewhere between udon noodles and cloud ear fungus. On its own, jellyfish doesn’t have much flavor, but it absorbs whatever dressing you put on it.

Semi-opaque, jellyfish salad creates an in-between space. It takes the edge of hunger but makes you want more. It gives you a taste, a scent, or suggestion, but it does not fill your belly. It comes at the very beginning of the grand feast, the time before the bride and groom make their entrance. The space of beginning, of anticipation, reflection.

“I am turning into a jellyfish,” my little cousin said. He got up from his seat at the wedding table and waved his arms about. A fish in and out of water. Creating the water with his own movement. All the kids, me, too, we all started wiggling. Swimming. In between the tables.

Jellyfish Salad (涼拌海蜇):

• 150 g shredded ready-to-eat jellyfish

• 2 tbsp julienne ginger

• 2 tbsp sesame seeds

• 1 cup finely shredded cucumber

• 1 tsp finely chopped chili

• 1 stalk chopped scallion

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp black rice vinegar

• 2 tsp sesame oil

• 1 tsp sugar

2. Pedagogy With No Center

        Flow, float, driftGo with the ocean, transparent body mostly water        No brain, no heart    No central nervous system        Nothing commands            All in accord

3. Immortal Pedagogy

Turritopsis nutricula. Confronted with destructive forces, a jellyfish of this species can transform itself back into a polyp. Reverses its life cycle. Escapes death. It is known as the immortal jellyfish. Scientists do not fully understand this rejuvenating process, but they do know that it entails transdifferentiation: cells are converted from one type to another.¹

I created a machinima to tell the story of my avatar’s transformation in Second Life from a human into a jellyfish²—my metaphor for softness and flexibility, for rebirth and potential. Through the immortal jellyfish’s transdifferentiation, I found a way to think about pedagogical metamorphosis. How can the challenges we face, like those destructive forces, trigger the transdifferentation process so that we change our fixed routines? Re-imagine our teaching practices. Can we ever return to the beginning? Start over again. Is changing the way to an immortal pedagogy? Or is pedagogy itself eternal just because it has the possibility of effecting transformation?