Is Failure the Best Option? An Untimely Reflection on Teaching

Authors

  • Stefano Oliverio Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1825-8670/16396

Keywords:

Teaching, Teacher demoralization, Gert Biesta, Thing-centred education, Existential view of education

Abstract

After outlining the renascent interest in teaching within contemporary educational theory, the present paper engages with a reflection on teaching beyond the predominant learnification and the related emphasis on efficacy as a primary value. In this endeavour, the theme of teachers’ demoralization is introduced in a philosophical-educational key, by deploying an existential perspective. Within this horizon, a special focus is on failure construed as intimately linked with the ‘essence’ of education qua an encounter of free beings and as a possibility inherent to the dignity of teaching. In conclusion, some implications of this recognition of the ‘significance’ of failure are indicated in regard to teacher education.

References

Adorno, Th. W. (1964), Jargon der Eigentlichkeit. Zur deutschen Ideologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Arendt, H. (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Arendt, H. (2006). Crisis in education. In H. Arendt, Between Past and Future. London: Penguin books.

Bellamy F.-X. (2014). Les déshérités ou l’urgence de trasmettre. Paris: Plon.

Biesta, G. J. J. (2006). Beyond Learning. Democratic Education for Human Future. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good Education in an Age of Measurement: Ethics, Politics, Democracy. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Biesta, G. J. J. (2014). The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.

Biesta, G. J. J. (2017). The Rediscovery of Teaching. New York: Routledge.

Biesta, G. J. J. (2021). World-centred Education: A View for the Present. New York: Routledge.

Bingham, C. (2015). Philosophy for Children as a Teaching Movement in an Era of Too Much Learning. Childhood & Philosophy, 11 (22), 223–40.

Bingham, C. (2016). On the Logic of Learning and Relationality. In E. Duarte (ed.), Philosophy of Education 2015 (pp. 183–6). Urbana (IL): Philosophy of Education Society.

Blais, M.-C., Gauchet, M., & Ottavi, D. (2014). Transmettre, apprendre. Paris: Éditions Stock.

Bollnow, O. F. (2014). Existenzphilosophie und Pädagogik. Versuch über unstetige Formen der Erziehung. In O. F. Bollnow, Schriften. Band VIII (pp. 5–129). Würzburg: Kigshausen & Neumann.

Caronia, L. (2022). The Evidence-Based Cargo-Cult and the De-moralization of (Educational) Decision-Making: A Critical Reflection. Paideutika, 18(35), 41–53. https://doi.org/10.57609/paideutika.vi35.2147

Hansen, D. (1995). The Call to Teach. New York and London. Teachers College Press.

Hansen, D. (2001). Exploring the Moral Heart of Teaching. Toward a Teacher’s Creed. New York and London: Teachers College Press.

Heidegger, M. (1992). Die Grundbegriffe der Metaphysik. Welt – Endlichkeit – Einsamkeit (1929/30). Gesamtausgabe 29/30. Frankfurt am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann.

Heidegger, M. (1993). Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Max Niemayer Verlag.

Higgins, Ch. (2011). The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley-Blackwell

Kambouchner, D. (2013) L’École, question philosophique. Paris: Fayard.

Masschelein, J. (2001). The Discourse of the Learning Society and the Loss of Childhood. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 35(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.00206

OECD (2005). Teachers Matter: Attracting, Developing and Retaining Effective Teachers. Paris: OECD.

Oliverio, S. (2019). The Question of a Thing-Centred View of Education: Notes on Vlieghe and Zamojski’s Towards an Ontology of Teaching. Studies in Philosophy and Education 39(1), 103–107. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-019-09693-w

Oliverio, S. (2022a). The Teachers’ Pascalian Wager. The Reasonable Folly of Education as a Public Good. Revista de Educación, 395, 81–107. https://doi.org/10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2022-395-525

Oliverio, S. (2022b). Italian Philosophy of Education and the End(s) of the Constructivist Koine. Paideutika. Quaderni di formazione e cultura, 35, 145–159. https://doi.org/10.57609/paideutika.vi35.2209

Popkewitz, T. S. (2008). Cosmopolitanism and the Age of School Reform. New York: Routledge.

Ravitch, D. (2010). The Death and Life of the Great American School System. How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books.

Roth, W.-M. (2002). Being and Becoming in the Classroom. Westport (CT) and London: Ablex Publishing.

Roth, W.-M. (2011). Passibility. At the Limits of the Constructivist Metaphor. Dordrecht-Heidelberg-London-New York: Springer.

Sahlberg, P. (2016). The Global Educational Reform Movement and Its Impact on Schooling. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard & A. Verger (eds.), The Handbook of Global Education Policy (pp. 128–144). Oxford: Wiley.

Santoro, D. A. (2018). Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Stiegler, B. (2012). La formulation de la nouvelle raison. Sept propositions pour l’école. In D. Kambouchner, Ph. Meirieu & B. Stiegler, L’école, le numerique et la societé qui vient (pp. 179–201). Paris: Éditions Mille et une nuits.

Striano, M., Melacarne, C., & Oliverio, S. (2018). La riflessività in educazione. Prospettive modelli, pratiche. Brescia: Morcelliana – Scholé.

van Manen, M. (2015). Pedagogical Tact: Knowing What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do. New York and London: Routledge.

Vlieghe, J., & Zamojski, P. (2019). Towards an Ontology of Teaching: Thing-centred Pedagogy, Affirmation and Love for the World. Cham: Springer.

Zamojski, P. (2019). Teaching, Otherness, and the Equalising Thing. Studies in Philosophy and Education 38, 563–568. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-019-09670-3

Downloads

Published

2023-05-30

How to Cite

Oliverio, S. (2023). Is Failure the Best Option? An Untimely Reflection on Teaching. Encyclopaideia, 27(1S), 65–74. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1825-8670/16396