Abstract
In this introductory chapter we set out the background for writing this book, the main ideas and arguments we develop and the way in which the following chapters are ordered. Developing a post-critical and affirmative perspective we have defended elsewhere, we address here the issue of why teaching is important. We do this by fleshing out an ontological account of the teacher, i.e. by analysing (in a phenomenological manner) what makes a teacher into a teacher. Our goal is not to come up with a final description of teaching, nor to prescribe what teachers should do. Instead, we propose a way of thinking and speaking that might enable teachers to recognise the intrinsic worth of what they are already doing and experiencing, and possibly a language that might also enable others (i.e. future teachers) to teach – and hence to reclaim teaching.
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Notes
- 1.
With the terms critical thinking and critical tradition we do not mainly refer to the tradition of critical theory in education (e.g. Adorno, Mollenhauer, Klafki, Gruschka) and critical pedagogy (e.g. Freire, Giroux, McLaren, Kincheloe). It is true that our own arguments in many respects run counter to this tradition, as it exemplifies what we call ‘critical’ here. However, our relation with it is far more complex. While, on the one hand our own views dovetail with some of the basic assumptions informing this tradition, on the other hand, our rendering of the term ‘critical’ is broader and it encompasses many other theoretical strands that have become dominant today.
- 2.
This way of seeing the function of educational theory might be traced back to the founder of modern Pädagogik, Johan Friedrich Herbart (1908 [1806]), who argued that “[t]he aim of all who educate and demand education is determined by the range of thought [Gesichtkreis] they bring to the subject” (p. 78). In that sense, it might be claimed that what we are aiming at in this book is to develop a language that refers to a range of thought, a Gesichtkreis, within which one could understand and practice teaching (Cf. Zamojski 2015).
- 3.
The original German text reads “was tun wir und wie verhalten wir uns, wenn wir erziehen?”
- 4.
The original German text reads “das immer schon ausgeübte und mehr oder minder deutlich ausgesprochene Verständnis von Erziehung herauszuheben, begrifflich zu fassen und damit die Eigenart des Erzieherischen heute wie früher herauszuschälen, gegen andere Verhaltungen abzuheben und so zu einem vertieften Erziehungsverständnis beizutragen.”
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Vlieghe, J., Zamojski, P. (2019). Introduction. In: Towards an Ontology of Teaching . Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16003-6_1
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