Pedagogies of Collapse: A Hopeful Education for The End of The World as We Know It

by Ginie Servant-Miklos

Genres: Politics, Teaching, Ecology, Sociology, Psychology, Personal Development

296 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2024

Reviews

[Philippe · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This book is an apogee of education’s power to overcome grief and trauma, a love letter to the young and their guiding lights in a chaotic future, and a think-with philosophical, psychological and pedagogical guide for overwhelmed educators."

I am not optimistic about the future of humanity. For me, however, 'doomsday' is more of a mood than a firm conviction - I excavate it in my artistic work. Intellectually, I have not yet fully aligned myself with the collapsology movement, probably because I remain in a state of denial. This book nudges me further along the path towards dry-eyed acceptance of the facts and the cultivation of a mature 'endism' sensibility - one that transcends the instinctive fight, flight or freeze response.

Ginie Servant's focus is on the responsibility of the teacher in today's university lecture halls and seminar rooms against the background of the inevitable and imminent partial or total collapse of a global thermo-industrial infrastructure and economy. Educators have a delicate task in preparing young people who lack the mindset and skills to sustain themselves in this predicament. Servant: "... we're here to give students just enough courage to face the difficult questions raised by collapse, the persistence to seek answers and the stamina to see them through". Fundamentally, the challenge for educators is to rediscover meaning and purpose in life under and beyond the rubble of neoliberal ruins, and to make young people part of that perspective.

The book is written in a very personal voice. Ginie Servant describes herself as "a young(ish), female, partially abled, queer pedagogue". She is also a wife and mother, a martial arts practitioner, a social entrepreneur and a scholar. In her three and a half decades she has developed a breadth of experience across different professional and social cultures. All these biographical elements are woven into the fabric of the narrative to alert the reader to the author's positionality and the sensibility from which the book was written. The presentation, while passionate, avoids bombast and retains a sober, matter-of-fact and rigorous quality, which was much appreciated by this reader.

I restructure Servant's narrative using a framework I often use to conceptualise the scope of systems thinking. This framework links 'systems thinking', 'systems tinkering' and 'systems being' into a coherent nexus. Thinking' relies on intellectual schemata and tools. Tinkering' embeds thinking in a method-driven craft of collaboratively working through messy, wicked problems. Being' embodies a systemic ethos and sensibility that informs every move and decision we make. The rationale underpinning this nexus can be viewed in time, as a developmental journey from one level of depth and proficiency to the next. Alternatively, the relationship between these three elements can be understood as recursive: 'being' provides meaning and context for 'making', which in turn shapes and informs 'thinking'. This recursive logic highlights how these elements enrich and reinforce each other.

Similarly, the content of this book can be structured in terms of thinking-tinkering-being. Thinking comprises chapters 1 and 2, in which the author presents a well-documented argument as to why societal collapse is inevitable, and why our western society and current educational establishment lack the resilience to respond to this challenge.

In chapters 3 and 4, the author presents a pedagogical framework to support tinkering with collapse-oriented themes in the classroom. It's more of a meta-framework, articulating the rationale behind experimental pedagogy, than a rigid script. It brings together a range of existing theories and practices into a coherent whole. One layer of the framework is based on three conceptual perspectives for understanding and making sense of human behaviour: cognitivism, psychoanalysis and philosophical existentialism. A second layer consists of design parameters for classroom experiences, largely informed by an updated conception of critical pedagogy. A third dimension of the framework is a nested set of learning foci, encompassing the cognitive, individual, group, societal and global dimensions. It seems to me that much of this material is of practical use in the classroom beyond a collapse focus.

The last two chapters delve deeper into the ethos of 'learning, loving and living' that underpins classroom tinkering. Educators need to grow into this disposition before they can pass it on to others. This requires them to transcend an individualism inculcated by the ideology of meritocracy. Servant also hypothesises that the pull of individualism is so strong because it invites a flight response from pervasive small and big traumas. Unaddressed, this creates the latent loneliness and despair so prevalent in our society. Another line of argument is a critique of the Left's shift away from a social programme aimed at pragmatically and tangibly improving the lives of the poor to an identity politics characterised by moral one-upmanship and an obsession with purity of process. This 'fight' response is not helpful in building broad-based resilience in the face of collapse. In contrast, Servant emphasises the cultivation of 'imperfect solidarities'. Our ability to remain poised in the ambivalence of human relationships and the chaos of collapse is rooted in a) a fundamental trust that 'there is more that unites us than divides us'; b) the ability to love ourselves and our fellow travellers as imperfect beings; c) the mastery of unconventional learning routines with a focus on nature and the mind-body nexus; d) the ability to live lightly, both infrastructurally and psychologically. There is a beautiful section in the final chapter that deals with our ability to 'love romantically'. Here Eros transcends 'love as a possessive investment', turns relationships into mutually supported containers of transformation, and thus has revolutionary potential. It echoes some of the valuable insights in Hilary Bradbury and Bill Torbert's book Eros/Power: Love in the Spirit of Inquiry.

In the final pages, the discussion turns to hope. After all, the subtitle of the book promises a 'hopeful education for the end of the world as we know it'. For Ginie Servant, hope is an ethical commitment to defiance, to learning, loving and living against all odds, to passing on the seeds of survival. We are not the first to undertake such an experiment. Worlds have been destroyed many times on our watch. Now it's our turn to take the reckoning.

[Bernadette Coffey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Timely and Challenging Call to Rethink Education

In Pedagogies of Collapse, Servant-Miklos offers a bold and provocative critique of traditional educational paradigms in the face of global crises. This book explores how education must evolve to prepare learners for an uncertain and unstable future, emphasizing resilience, critical thinking, and adaptability.

With a compelling mix of theory and practical insights, Servant-Miklos challenges educators and policymakers to confront uncomfortable truths about the systems we’ve relied upon. The book is both a wake-up call and a roadmap for transformative change.

Engaging, thought-provoking, and essential reading for those concerned with the intersection of education and social change.

[Federico Botero J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Su tesis central es que el mundo como lo conocemos, nuestra sociedad ‘termo-industrial’, entró en una era de colapso y que el sistema educativo no solo no ha estado a la altura del momento, sino que es parte del problema. Hace un llamado a transitar de una educación que ha sido parte del problema, o basada en una negación de la realidad, a una que equipe a los estudiantes con la dosis de realidad, la fuerza, la esperanza (como un compromiso ético), habilidades prácticas y red de conexiones para la acción.

El libro ofrece herramientas interesantes para hacer espacio para el duelo, tomar acciones apropiadas ahora mismo, le da valor a lo que denomina ‘solidaridades imperfectas’ (con pragmatismo y humanismo, enfocadas en lo que nos une y no en lo que nos separa)

[Jeremy Neideck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provided a powerful intervention in my pedagogical approaches even before I had completed it. It is full of provocative ways to process the collapse of the world as we know it in partnership with students. Wonderfully and critically contextualised by the work of Freire, De Beauvoir, hooks, and even Žižek, Servant-Miklos writes passionately, pragmatically, and with love. A must read not only for educators, but anyone who wants to confront and navigate collapse while staying present and active.

[Tim Willems · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are we preparing our next generation for the world of tomorrow or yesterday? Enough in here that people can disagree on. Five stars though, because of the breadth and scope of pedagogy and didactics at play in a classroom and due to the deeply personal nature of the book. It fills you with a real sense of urgency and a strange sort of ‘active hope’, as Joanna Macy would call it.

[Alise Miļūna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is open-source (free), and I recommend it.

[Robert McTague · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ginie Servant-Miklos' work should be required reading for anyone in or entering into education, or for that matter, any position in public policy. Her case for civilizational collapse, alone, is utterly persuasive and impressively far-ranging, but is only the context for her shared knowledge. Whether pulling from her extensive background in political economy or her vivid, relevant life experiences, Ginie's considerable skill in applying qualitative analysis and synthesizing sources as diverse as Diamond, Marx, Frankl, Andersen or de Beauvoir make her work relentlessly comprehensive in its considerations while elegantly accessible in its pronouncements. Unflinchingly honest yet pragmatically hopeful, this is the education treatise of our times.