This paper states that modern education and utopian discourse share one common trait, that of being structurally founded on the promise of human betterment. The changing relations between concepts of education and utopianism will be developed through conceptual analysis of the dynamics of the promise in their interweaving process. This shall be discussed through three main topics. The first is the appropriation of space in early modern education, with particular emphasis on the influence of print technology on framing a new (...) conception of educational spaces and practices. Second, the promise of the idea of progress in the Enlightenment period, which will become the further technological promise of a society-to-come, no longer spatially but temporally presented. Finally, the promise of autonomy through and against the modern subject, in which such autonomy is presented like the end of the journey through education, supposed that there is an end to such a journey. The key f... (shrink)

Experience is one of the major paths to growth and autonomy, and as such, of outstanding educational value. But it also has a much wider sociocultural context, rooted in life itself. It is about learning that which cannot be taught, learning to think, which precedes all other-defined forms of education. It is an encounter with the unknown, where we learn to cope with uncertainty. Though, in the same way that growth does, experience takes time. This article discusses the contemporary changes (...) in the perception of time and experience, through the fundamental but seldom formulated question—Do we still have time for experience? Our argument is that while contemporary society is craving for experiences, it is not disposed to give them the time it takes for its process to unfold. This will be illustrated through the example of the contemporary conception of ‘adventure’, a most typical form of experience, in two contexts. One is that of experience consumption in adventure tourism, the other is that of adventure education. Notwithstanding the differences in motives and aims, both are reducing experience to a predictable, other-defined, and eventually assessable programme, made to fit a schedule. Experience is no longer something that happens to us, it is becoming something that we make happen and control. This results in flushing the unknown away, along with the formative potential of experience. This article will develop insights into what it is about to become in order to address the problem of the educational future of experience. (shrink)