What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

Over the last decade, there has been a considerable expansion of mindfulness programmes into a number of different domains of contemporary life, such as corporations, schools, hospitals and even the military. Understanding the reasons for this phenomenon involves, I argue, reflecting upon the nature of contemporary capitalism and mapping the complexity of navigating new digital technologies that make multiple and accelerated solicitations upon attention and our affective lives. Whilst acknowledging the benefits of mindfulness practice, this article argues that it is (...) equally important to attend to the ethical framework that gives orientation to these practices and the outer conditions that shape lived daily experience, such as school or work environments. I suggest that the well-meaning efforts to secularise mindfulness, provide scientific evidence for its effectiveness, and introduce it to wider publics may have served to impoverish the rich contribution that practices of mindfulness, situated within a broader ethical framework, can make to human lives, and arguably contribute to the educational endeavour. For example, the emphasis on transforming inner conditions of students’ lives can lead to the neglect of outer conditions, such as structural inequality, or unhealthy and exploitative work practices. This can result in practices that privilege individual wellbeing over compassion and concern for the happiness of others, providing a buffer against loving attention to the world and others. Instead, I ask how mindfulness in educational settings could come to be viewed in a different light if we reflect upon the ways in which school environments and curricula can promote mindfulness, awareness, sensitive inquiry, and contemplative practices through the day, rather than offering it as a discrete intervention focused on the self and wellbeing. (shrink)

In this article, Aislinn O'Donnell offers a set of reflections on the relation between therapy and education. In the first section, she examines criticisms of therapeutic education, mobilizing the example of prison education to highlight the difficulties that arise from imposing prescriptive modes of subjectification and socialization in pedagogy. In the second section, she addresses the relation between therapy and education by focusing on just one element of the experience of education: those moments at which a subject has the potential (...) of becoming significant in the life of a student. An important dimension of the educator's authority involves noticing such moments, fostering the conditions that make them more likely, and engaging in the creative process and practice of deciding how best pedagogically to respond to these moments. In the third section, O'Donnell develops this idea by detailing a philosophical approach and practice that understands “effectiveness” in education as bound to practice, creative responsiveness, and the judgment of the educator in concrete, singular pedagogical situations, rather than construed in terms of generic models of “best practice.”. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the concept of thinking in Hannah Arendt's writings. Arendt's interest in the experience of thinking allowed her to develop a concept of thinking that is distinct from other forms of mental activity such as cognition and problem solving. For her, thinking is an unending, unpredictable and destructive activity without fixed outcomes. Her understanding of thinking is distinguished from other approaches to thinking that equate it with, for example, problem solving or knowledge. Examples of a ‘problem-solving’, (...) skills-based approach to thinking that place a premium on behavioural change are drawn from the context of the prison. I offer an alternative example of thinking with others from my philosophy classes in the prison. I draw upon Arendt's insights to develop a concept of ‘thinking-in-concert’. Whilst Arendt believes that thinking must be a solitary activity, I argue that the concept of ‘thinking-in-concert’ helps to capture experiences of thinking with others in a manner that is more hesitant and provisional than some descriptions of communities of enquiry or democratic education. The embodied presence of others matters when ‘thinking-in-concert’. I describe this approach as educational as well as conversational. This helps to communicate the way in which we turn towards others and may be pulled up short by them as we strive to think together or experience moments of conversion or insight whilst enjoying the ordinary activity of talking with others. This concept may help us to understand the difference between the experience of thinking, teaching and learning when we are physically present to one another and the experience of virtual learning or teaching. (shrink)

This chapter begins with conversations in a prison on Samuel Beckett and pedagogy, conversations that emerged from the authors classes in philosophy. There are two interwoven strands in the chapter. One questions the emphasis on competition and achievement in contemporary education and its implications for the author's relationship to failure. The second, strongly influenced by Beckett, explores ways of reimagining the relationship to failure in such a way that allows them to reflect on what matters in life. Rather than seeking (...) to eliminate failure, it is more interesting to think about how the concept of failure could be reimagined if, as Beckett suggests, failure is not accompanied by disappointment but became simply what we do, rather than being something we are. (shrink)

It is difficult to respond creatively to humiliation, affliction, degradation, or shame, just as it is difficult to respond creatively to the experience of undergoing or inflicting violence. In this article Aislinn O'Donnell argues that if we are to think about how to address gun violence — including mass shootings — in schools, then we need to talk about violence inside and outside schools. Honest, and even difficult, conversations about violence and vulnerability can take place in schools, and there are (...) ways of working with curricula and student voice that can allow for this. If pedagogy is to play a role in reorienting responses to violence and vulnerability, discussion of equivocal and ambivalent responses to corporeal vulnerability, and of histories and genealogies of violence, must be invited. We need to acknowledge that we do not have, and we may well never have, a world without violence. Drawing upon the experience of teaching philosophy in nontraditional learning environments, including prison, O'Donnell argues for an approach to pedagogy and curricula that invites difficult conversations about the complexity of violence. (shrink)

Contemporary educational policies have recently prioritised the development of generic, core, and transferable skills. This essay reflects on this tendency in the context of the ‘algorithmic condition’ and those discourses that tend toward an image of education that privileges dematerialised skills, practices, and knowledge. It argues that this turn towards dematerialisation is resonant with shifts in a number of diff erent domains, including work, and explores some of the implications of this shift. Instead I suggest an approach to education that (...) understands it as turning towards the world, loving the world, and creating a common world. In order to understanding thinking and knowing as material practices, the concept of ‘material thinking’ is developed that refuses binaries of theory and practice, but that instead understands thinking, particularly in educational contexts, as material and a practice of thinking with something, and a turning towards the world. I draw upon the work of Susan Oyama, Elizabeth Grosz, Tim Ingold and Isabelle Stengers, and explore the example of Barbara McClintock’s research as a cytogeneticist researching maize. Here I am particularly interested in the importance of deep engagement with a subject matter in terms of developing the skilfulness that is associated with what I am calling ‘material thinking’. This allows us to think about education in a way that pays attention to the plurality of practices of material thinking that engage with the natural history of humankind, and the story of the world. (shrink)