Courage, Uncertainty and Imagination in Deweyan Work: Challenging the Neo-Liberal Educational Agenda

Abstract

In my paper, I attempt to accomplish a twofold task: first, to argue that in order to understand important features of Deweyan work, a thorough analysis of the roles that uncertainty, courage and imagination play in Deweyan thought is required. Second, based on such an analysis, I try to show that such features are essential for education to happen. Moreover, courage, imagination and uncertainty taken together work to frame an understanding of education and learning as challenging and even risky enterprises. I develop my analysis against the current, ‘official’ picture of education promoted worldwide, one in which courage, imagination and uncertainty are exactly the features that come to be eclipsed by the neo‐liberal educational agenda. Thus, I claim that education with its roots in imagination and courage is directed toward ‘unattained possibilities’ as its own, proper aim.

Dewey, Existential Uncertainty and Non-affirmative Democratic Education

“…Transmissive, "affirmative" teaching as telling is still pervasive today, not just in schools, but also in tertiary education. Educational policies support this affirmative mode when they are grounded in views of high-quality education that equate quality with that which is quantitatively measurable, and in turn construct teacher accountability on the basis of student achievement on standardised tests (Apple, 2007;Au, 2010;Biesta, 2015;D'agnese, 2018;Stoltz & Webster, 2020). It is not merely that such policies do not account for what is educative about any given situation designed for learning and thinking, but rather it is that they actually suppress it.…”

Philosophieren mit Kindern als Pädagogik für eine offene und ungewisse Zukunft

“…Diese Entwicklungen stellen das Bildungssystem vor neue und besondere Herausforderungen. Die Frage, wie Bildungs-und Lernprozesse im Hinblick auf eine offene und ungewisse, immer weniger vorhersehbare Zukunft gestaltet und wie Kinder darauf vorbereitet werden können, mit Ungewissheit und Komplexität konstruktiv umzugehen, wird in der Erziehungswissenschaft seit längerer Zeit in verschiedenen Kontexten (Barnett, 2000;Barnett, 2012;Helsper, Hörster & Kade, 2003;Hall, 2006;Hayden, 2012;Fecho, 2013;D'Agnese, 2018;Paseka, Keller-Schneider & Combe, 2018) diskutiert. In diesen Diskussionszusammenhängen sind "Zukunfts-" oder auch "Ungewissheitskompetenzen" definiert worden, die dazu beitragen sollen, Kinder und Jugendliche auf neue und ungewisse Herausforderungen vorzubereiten, es gibt jedoch bislang wenig konkrete Vorstellungen, wie solche Kompetenzen bei Kindern und Jugendlichen entwickelt werden können.…”