Beyond Learning: Democratic Education for a Human Future

by Biesta,Gert J. J.

• ISBN13: 9781594512346
• ISBN10: 1594512345
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2006-11-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Winner-2008 AESA Critics' Choice Book Award Many educational practices are based upon ideas about what it means to be human. Thus education is conceived as the production of particular subjectivities and identities such as the rational person, the autonomous individual, or the democratic citizen. Beyond Learning asks what might happen to the ways in which we educate if we treat the question as to what it means to be human as a radically open question; a question that can only be answered by engaging in education rather than as a question that needs to be answered before we can educate. The book provides a different way to understand and approach education, one that focuses on the ways in which human beings come into the world as unique individuals through responsible responses to what and who is other and different. Beyond Learning raises important questions about pedagogy, community and educational responsibility, and helps educators of children and adults alike to understand what a commitment to a truly democratic education entails.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Prologue: Education and the Question of Being Human	1	(12)
1 Against Learning: Reclaiming a Language for Education in an Age of Learning	13	(20)
The New Language of Learning	15	(4)
Against Learning?	19	(5)
From Learning to Education: What Constitutes an Educational Relationship?	24	(1)
Trust (without Ground)	25	(1)
(Transcendental) Violence	26	(3)
Responsibility (without Knowledge)	29	(2)
For Education	31	(2)
2 Coming into Presence: Education after the Death of Subject	33	(22)
The Subject of Education	34	(3)
The End of Man	37	(5)
Who Comes after the Subject?	42	(1)
The Virtual Reality of Objective Space	43	(1)
The Space of Architecture: Disjunctive Space	44	(3)
The Space of the Other: Intersubjective Space	47	(3)
The Space of Responsibility: Ethical Space	50	(2)
Conclusion	52	(3)
3 The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common: Education and the Language of Responsibility	55	(18)
Modern Society: The Modern Community	57	(2)
The Postmodern Stranger	59	(2)
The Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common	61	(3)
The Language of Responsibility	64	(2)
The Rational Community and the "Other" Community	66	(1)
The Community of Education	67	(2)
Conclusion	69	(4)
4 How Difficult Should Education Be?	73	(24)
Politics and the Political Community	76	(4)
Hannah Arendt and the Difficulty of Politics	80	(3)
The Predicament of Action	83	(2)
Freedom, Action, and Plurality	85	(2)
The Space Where Freedom Can Appear	87	(2)
Visiting	89	(3)
How Difficult Should Education Be?	92	(3)
Note	95	(2)
5 The Architecture of Education: Creating a Worldly Space	97	(20)
Education and the Tradition of Bildung	100	(2)
Where Are We, Today?	102	(3)
Bildung: Creating a Worldly Space	105	(3)
Building: Creating a Worldly Space	108	(6)
Conclusion: The Paradox of Bildung/Building	114	(3)
6 Education and the Democratic Person	117	(30)
Democracy and Education Revisited	118	(3)
Defining Democracy	121	(2)
Education for Democracy	123	(1)
Education through Democracy	124	(1)
Democracy as a Problem for Education?	125	(2)
Immanuel Kant: An Individualistic Conception of the Democratic Person	127	(1)
John Dewey: A Social Conception of the Democratic Person	128	(4)
Hannah Arendt: A Political Conception of the Democratic Person	132	(3)
Education and the Democratic Person	135	(2)
Three Questions for Democratic Education	137	(6)
Conclusion	143	(4)
Epilogue: A Pedagogy of Interruption	147	(6)
Bibliography	153	(10)
Index	163	(8)
About the Author	171