This article aims at making a case for the role of seduction in existential education, that is, education that focuses on the pupil’s life choices. First, the article attempts to show that the relationship between the teacher and the pupil can be understood as a form of seduction. Secondly, the article examines how such a relationship functions in practice. Thirdly, the article warns against dangerous aspects related to seduction, and lastly, the article offers five conditions for how seduction can be (...) used in a justifiable manner in existential education. (shrink)

Herner Sæverot begins this article with an example: how Søren Kierkegaard used deceit as a means to educate. In one of his biographical texts, it turns out that Kierkegaard's objective was to deceive his readers into a totalized and universal truth. According to Sæverot, Kierkegaard's approach shows that he was a “demystifier,” someone who wants to save an other from delusion and bring this person into a better understanding of the world. Contrary to Kierkegaard, Sæverot argues that education is [im]possible—which, (...) he further maintains, may open up the possibility of being “educated.” Sæverot couches his argument in the context of a novel, Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Through a phenomenological study, Sæverot demonstrates how Nabokov creates deceits and adverse forces in his writings so as to open up a space of education, wherein the reader can take active part. The education of Nabokov is thus unpredictable and transformative. The ways in which Nabokov deceives and “educates” can, Sæverot ultimately contends, open up new domains for the field of educational theory. (shrink)

This essay initiates a fundamental discussion about education’s nature and character, and raises the questions: Is education reliant on other disciplines as, for example, psychology, sociology and philosophy? Or may education be thought of independently, without being reliant on other disciplines? These questions are discussed in the light of Theodor Litt’s educational reading of Hegel’s understanding of dialectics, as it appears in the book Phenomenology of Spirit, in order to support that education has a relational and dialectic nature. In the (...) second part, we connect the concept of ‘Hegelian dialectic structure’ with scientific theory. More specifically, we introduce a theoretically oriented concept, based on semantic theory construction; namely, ‘relational parameter bundles’. This concept clarifies the difference between education and other ‘scientific,’ often more empirically based disciplines, such as psychology, on which education, or rather, educational researchers, traditionally rely. Through our theoretical approach we aim to uncover fundamental differences within different disciplines’ scientific thinking, and their use of theories and models, which then manifest themselves in the discipline’s scientific assessments and practical actions. An uncritical integration of other disciplines in education may destroy the ‘true’ nature of education, and thus pose a danger to education’s character, problem areas and ways of conducting research. That does not mean that education shall be isolated from other disciplines, it is rather a question of when perspectives from other disciplines should be included in educational matters. Not before the educational questions are raised and worked through will it be appropriate to obtain knowledge from other disciplines, if, that is, it is deemed necessary based on educational judgment. (shrink)

After providing a general overview and critique of some of the main problems with teacher praise, in which I basically argue that praise binds and controls the students instead of liberating them, I go on to examine whether it is possible to praise without the intention to control the students. In this way I challenge conventional and standardising ways of praising, and argue that it is possible to make room for the singularity and uniqueness of students through praise.

This article states that the concept of time we generally hold is a spatial version of time.However, a spatial time concept creates a series of problems,with unfortunate consequences for education.The problems become particularly obvious when the spatial time concept is used as a basis for the education function that is connected to the individuality of the pupils. In order to examine this problem more closely, the article turns to literature in order to get a new and different insight into education. (...) In part four of the novel Ada or Ardor: A family chronicle (1969) the Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov claims, by way of the protagonistVanVeen, that a spatial notion of time will lead to a determinate and reduced view of the future. Not only does one in this way sweep the very notion of time under the carpet, but one will moreover hinder the possibility of appearing as a unique and individualised person.Van is preoccupied with a pedagogic question: viz., the question of how one can become individualised through time.This is also the reason he attempts to re-create a time concept that can give him the status of a free and independent individual. With a background in Van’s analysis of time, the article attempts to derive two forms for education. First, formal education, which bases itself on a spatial time concept. Secondly, non-formal education, which bases itself on a time concept that has freed itself in the greatest possible manner from space. Neither of these two solutions is appropriate in regard to education’s individualising function. Therefore, the article draws on Nabokov’s best-known novel, Lolita (1955), so as to broadenVan’s understanding of time. In the end, then, the article articulates a time concept that introduces a notion of education where time occurs through acts of responsibility. Not until education has such a time concept as a basis, can one, so the article argues, attain the education function that has as its goal to individualise and make responsible children and young people. (shrink)