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El bello riesgo de educar: Cada acto educativo es singular y abierto a lo imprevisto
Sólida reflexión sobre la educación, que ofrece claves para entender en profundidad por qué es una tarea tan esforzada y cómo podemos afrontarla en mejores condiciones. Reivindica la tarea educativa y el papel del docente como referente valioso para el alumno.
175 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2012
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408 people want to read
About the author
Gert J.J. Biesta
39 books33 followersGert Biesta is Professor of Educational Theory at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of Exeter and Visiting Professor for Education and Democratic Citizenship at Örebro University and Mälardalen University, Sweden.
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February 21, 2019
There is simply no way I can cover all of the ideas that I ought to cover in this review. Often, when I read a book about education theory, I can expect there will be a couple of ideas I haven’t heard before – which is a function of the fact I’ve read quite a few books on this topic. But this book is bursting open with ideas I’ve never seen or thought about before. In fact, I’ve had to read it twice. Even so, I can still only hope to skim the surface here. That said, I’ve already been recommending this book to people at work.
This book uses a series of theories as lenses to bring different aspects of education and learning into focus. Mostly, what it does is call into question notions of ‘learning’, particularly ‘life-long learning’, and of the possibility of emancipatory education of the sort, to be honest, I generally find self-evidently good. She (oh, don’t you hate that – I’ve just checked and it seems Gert is a boy) He bases this book on one of the basic ideas of existentialism – that being proceeds essence.
We like to think that we have an essence, our own true self. We believe that our subjective identity is something that is more or less given and nearly unchangeable. That is, that our essence is separate from our existence. This is all very Socratic – and in fact, Biesta even discusses Plato’s Meno in this book to explain this point – you know, if you don’t know what you are inquiring after, how do you inquire after it? Socrates solves this problem by saying that we don’t ever really learn anything new, but rather we ‘recollect’ things and this feels like we are learning – that we already contain all of the knowledge we will ever acquire and we just need to bring it out. His basic idea being that birth is such a traumatic event for us that even though before birth we knew everything there was to know, the trauma of birth means we forget everything. So, learning is basically a kind of recollecting of what we once knew but then forgot. This is, in fact, a necessary conclusion for Plato, linked to his idea that the world is made of essences, made of his perfect world of forms. For Plato you can talk of a chair or a house or a wall – but you can only do that because somewhere there exist the perfect chair, house or wall, that is, the perfect form of these things, their essence, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to recognised all of the imperfect manifestations of these things in our all too imperfect world. Knowledge is recognising these perfect essences in the messy imperfections of the world we live in.
But what if the world wasn’t composed of perfect forms that we can only see darkly through the fog of our apparently real world? What if the world is instead something that needs to be experienced to be understood (oh, I’m very conscious of the fact I’m simplifying both Biesta’s and Plato’s arguments here, but let’s continue on regardless). That would mean that there is no simple, unified, subjective identity that is ‘you’. Rather, you would only get to see who you are via your interactions with other people – you would only see your own subjectivity within what you do. Your subjectivity would be more of a verb than a noun. Someone alone, sitting on top of a mountain, contemplating their navel, wouldn’t be the highest form of human spiritual awareness, but rather such isolation would no longer be something that could be considered even properly human.
I think this is one of the central ideas of the whole book and it echoes throughout. The subjective is the social – a bit like the old feminist slogan (and perhaps part of the reason I read this assuming he was a she) that the personal is political. However, for Biesta our subjectivity is never quite an essence, but always merely a potential. This is brought into focus using a whole range of philosophical lenses. So, he discusses the pragmatism of Dewey, the deconstructionism of Derrida, the religious theories of Caputo, the ideas of the incompatibility between politics and education of Hannah Arendt – and so on. I told you – far too much for me to hope to be able to review here.
I’m not going to make my way through all of these arguments, but like I said, I’ve read this book twice, because I think making one’s way through these idea is important. All the same, Biesta does a much better of that than I could – and in relatively simple and readable prose. If you are interested, you should read him.
I’m going to pick a couple of these ideas to talk about here. The first is his discussion of the dual nature of creation in the Bible and how this duality might help throw light on our current understanding of ‘creativity’ in education. A lot of Western notions of ‘creativity’ refer back to one or other of the two creation myths in the Bible. The first is the idea that god made the world from nothing (a kind of complete creation), and so this form of creativity involves what could be also thought of as ultimate responsibility – since what now ‘exists’ is totally the creator’s ‘fault’, and so he holds total responsibility for it. This idea is played with in Frankenstein, for instance – or as my daughters said to me the other night when we were talking about this, ‘It’s Yahweh or the highway’. But in other translations of the Bible’s creation myth god doesn’t create everything, but rather everything was without form and god proves to be the wind that breathes life into creation, that sets the universe in motion. That is, rather than god being fully controlling of his creation, he is merely the first mover, the force that gets things started and who is therefore less responsible for everything that happens after that, and less controlling of it. Rather than god providing the ultimate rule book that then must be followed (if you are going to play in my creation, here are the rules you’re to follow) the universe is instead in a kind of chaotic dance that not even god can know how it will turn out, and that is the beauty of creation. Here true creativity is essential, as it involves not just following orders, but in our responding to the minute-by-minute-ness of the dance of creation and of life.
Biesta argues that education has three essential domains: qualification, socialisation and subjectivity. Subjectivity is a key focus of this book – but all three are important. As I’ve already said about ‘existence proceeding essence’, he sees our subjective awareness as something quite different from a ‘soul’ that we each hold and that is unchanging and innate. Rather, he sees our subjectivity as a latent possibility that only comes to the fore once we interact with other people. As such, we can’t really be ‘trained’ to be ‘subjectively aware’ – and this is a theme he repeats throughout in different guises – our subjectivity, once it manifests, is likely to come to us as much as a surprise as it may to other people. It only exists in life and in the dance of our social interactions.
Which is why he can refer to education as an impossible gift. At one point he discusses Freire’s banking model of education – the idea of an all-knowing teacher filling the empty heads of their endlessly stupid students until eventually even these students have some knowledge, like the teacher depositing money into a bank account.
The problem is that knowledge doesn’t quite work in this neat way. And rather than students gleefully accepting this ‘gift’ of knowledge, they are much more likely to reject it, or simply not be able to accept it, even if they ‘want’ to. Rather than the teacher seeking to stuff knowledge into students’ heads, the role of the teacher is to create situations, based on their understanding of the students themselves, that will create the best possibility for them to perhaps find ways to accept the gift of education. And this can only be on the basis of an equal and respectful interaction between teacher and student. Not equal as in quantity of knowledge, necessarily, but rather in potential. All of which comes back to the ‘risk’ of the title.
The part of this book I found most devastating as the discussion on the Marxist idea of ‘false consciousness’. You see, people who are exploited by a system often do not realise they are being exploited by that system – they might even do things that are completely contrary to their best interests (oh, I don’t know, say, vote for Trump or something). Anyway, this ‘false consciousness’ needs to be replaced by ‘revolutionary consciousness’. For that to happen, someone who is unaffected by false consciousness needs to provide some form of consciousness raising for the unenlightened and this will then mean their eyes will be opened to their real situation in the world.
I’ve over-egged that, but the point still stands – it is clear that people very often act in ways that are contrary to their own needs and Marxists often explain that by discussing false consciousness and Bourdieu does the same by talking of ‘misrecognition’. The solution is invariably the same – those who know informing those who are ignorant.
And this is Biesta’s point. If those suffering from false consciousness are to be treated as blind babies, when will they be declared ‘able to see’? When will they have what it takes to be a peer with the enlightened one? The problem is that too often the power relationship between the knower and the learner remains forever. If the learning project does not begin as a mutual learning endeavour, then it is unlikely to ever develop into such an endeavour.
I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable this idea makes me feel. Not least because I do think there is such a thing as false consciousness. But I also think Biesta is right here – and his talking about Freire is the solution to this problem. Freire says the teacher’s role is to help people read the world and the word – but not by coming into their communities and expecting them to be blank slates, but rather by learning what are these people’s needs and how the teacher can help them realise these needs. That is, the teacher much position themselves as colleagues rather than generals.
I’ve barely touched the surface here. This is a very short book, but overflowing with ideas. Really, if you are interested in education and how education is different from ‘learning’ – this is a must read.
This book uses a series of theories as lenses to bring different aspects of education and learning into focus. Mostly, what it does is call into question notions of ‘learning’, particularly ‘life-long learning’, and of the possibility of emancipatory education of the sort, to be honest, I generally find self-evidently good. She (oh, don’t you hate that – I’ve just checked and it seems Gert is a boy) He bases this book on one of the basic ideas of existentialism – that being proceeds essence.
We like to think that we have an essence, our own true self. We believe that our subjective identity is something that is more or less given and nearly unchangeable. That is, that our essence is separate from our existence. This is all very Socratic – and in fact, Biesta even discusses Plato’s Meno in this book to explain this point – you know, if you don’t know what you are inquiring after, how do you inquire after it? Socrates solves this problem by saying that we don’t ever really learn anything new, but rather we ‘recollect’ things and this feels like we are learning – that we already contain all of the knowledge we will ever acquire and we just need to bring it out. His basic idea being that birth is such a traumatic event for us that even though before birth we knew everything there was to know, the trauma of birth means we forget everything. So, learning is basically a kind of recollecting of what we once knew but then forgot. This is, in fact, a necessary conclusion for Plato, linked to his idea that the world is made of essences, made of his perfect world of forms. For Plato you can talk of a chair or a house or a wall – but you can only do that because somewhere there exist the perfect chair, house or wall, that is, the perfect form of these things, their essence, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to recognised all of the imperfect manifestations of these things in our all too imperfect world. Knowledge is recognising these perfect essences in the messy imperfections of the world we live in.
But what if the world wasn’t composed of perfect forms that we can only see darkly through the fog of our apparently real world? What if the world is instead something that needs to be experienced to be understood (oh, I’m very conscious of the fact I’m simplifying both Biesta’s and Plato’s arguments here, but let’s continue on regardless). That would mean that there is no simple, unified, subjective identity that is ‘you’. Rather, you would only get to see who you are via your interactions with other people – you would only see your own subjectivity within what you do. Your subjectivity would be more of a verb than a noun. Someone alone, sitting on top of a mountain, contemplating their navel, wouldn’t be the highest form of human spiritual awareness, but rather such isolation would no longer be something that could be considered even properly human.
I think this is one of the central ideas of the whole book and it echoes throughout. The subjective is the social – a bit like the old feminist slogan (and perhaps part of the reason I read this assuming he was a she) that the personal is political. However, for Biesta our subjectivity is never quite an essence, but always merely a potential. This is brought into focus using a whole range of philosophical lenses. So, he discusses the pragmatism of Dewey, the deconstructionism of Derrida, the religious theories of Caputo, the ideas of the incompatibility between politics and education of Hannah Arendt – and so on. I told you – far too much for me to hope to be able to review here.
I’m not going to make my way through all of these arguments, but like I said, I’ve read this book twice, because I think making one’s way through these idea is important. All the same, Biesta does a much better of that than I could – and in relatively simple and readable prose. If you are interested, you should read him.
I’m going to pick a couple of these ideas to talk about here. The first is his discussion of the dual nature of creation in the Bible and how this duality might help throw light on our current understanding of ‘creativity’ in education. A lot of Western notions of ‘creativity’ refer back to one or other of the two creation myths in the Bible. The first is the idea that god made the world from nothing (a kind of complete creation), and so this form of creativity involves what could be also thought of as ultimate responsibility – since what now ‘exists’ is totally the creator’s ‘fault’, and so he holds total responsibility for it. This idea is played with in Frankenstein, for instance – or as my daughters said to me the other night when we were talking about this, ‘It’s Yahweh or the highway’. But in other translations of the Bible’s creation myth god doesn’t create everything, but rather everything was without form and god proves to be the wind that breathes life into creation, that sets the universe in motion. That is, rather than god being fully controlling of his creation, he is merely the first mover, the force that gets things started and who is therefore less responsible for everything that happens after that, and less controlling of it. Rather than god providing the ultimate rule book that then must be followed (if you are going to play in my creation, here are the rules you’re to follow) the universe is instead in a kind of chaotic dance that not even god can know how it will turn out, and that is the beauty of creation. Here true creativity is essential, as it involves not just following orders, but in our responding to the minute-by-minute-ness of the dance of creation and of life.
Biesta argues that education has three essential domains: qualification, socialisation and subjectivity. Subjectivity is a key focus of this book – but all three are important. As I’ve already said about ‘existence proceeding essence’, he sees our subjective awareness as something quite different from a ‘soul’ that we each hold and that is unchanging and innate. Rather, he sees our subjectivity as a latent possibility that only comes to the fore once we interact with other people. As such, we can’t really be ‘trained’ to be ‘subjectively aware’ – and this is a theme he repeats throughout in different guises – our subjectivity, once it manifests, is likely to come to us as much as a surprise as it may to other people. It only exists in life and in the dance of our social interactions.
Which is why he can refer to education as an impossible gift. At one point he discusses Freire’s banking model of education – the idea of an all-knowing teacher filling the empty heads of their endlessly stupid students until eventually even these students have some knowledge, like the teacher depositing money into a bank account.
The problem is that knowledge doesn’t quite work in this neat way. And rather than students gleefully accepting this ‘gift’ of knowledge, they are much more likely to reject it, or simply not be able to accept it, even if they ‘want’ to. Rather than the teacher seeking to stuff knowledge into students’ heads, the role of the teacher is to create situations, based on their understanding of the students themselves, that will create the best possibility for them to perhaps find ways to accept the gift of education. And this can only be on the basis of an equal and respectful interaction between teacher and student. Not equal as in quantity of knowledge, necessarily, but rather in potential. All of which comes back to the ‘risk’ of the title.
The part of this book I found most devastating as the discussion on the Marxist idea of ‘false consciousness’. You see, people who are exploited by a system often do not realise they are being exploited by that system – they might even do things that are completely contrary to their best interests (oh, I don’t know, say, vote for Trump or something). Anyway, this ‘false consciousness’ needs to be replaced by ‘revolutionary consciousness’. For that to happen, someone who is unaffected by false consciousness needs to provide some form of consciousness raising for the unenlightened and this will then mean their eyes will be opened to their real situation in the world.
I’ve over-egged that, but the point still stands – it is clear that people very often act in ways that are contrary to their own needs and Marxists often explain that by discussing false consciousness and Bourdieu does the same by talking of ‘misrecognition’. The solution is invariably the same – those who know informing those who are ignorant.
And this is Biesta’s point. If those suffering from false consciousness are to be treated as blind babies, when will they be declared ‘able to see’? When will they have what it takes to be a peer with the enlightened one? The problem is that too often the power relationship between the knower and the learner remains forever. If the learning project does not begin as a mutual learning endeavour, then it is unlikely to ever develop into such an endeavour.
I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable this idea makes me feel. Not least because I do think there is such a thing as false consciousness. But I also think Biesta is right here – and his talking about Freire is the solution to this problem. Freire says the teacher’s role is to help people read the world and the word – but not by coming into their communities and expecting them to be blank slates, but rather by learning what are these people’s needs and how the teacher can help them realise these needs. That is, the teacher much position themselves as colleagues rather than generals.
I’ve barely touched the surface here. This is a very short book, but overflowing with ideas. Really, if you are interested in education and how education is different from ‘learning’ – this is a must read.
July 11, 2020
The book is very theory based, and by theory based I mean Derrida and Hannah Arendt - which to my mind are rather elaborate and unnecessary to achieve the relatively modest goals of the book itself. It feels like a rather typical strategy of setting up strawmen to knock down – I don't think anyone in the world believes that education or learning is a process with a guaranteed outcome, so the emphasis on reinstating the idea of risk is something that would only occur to a quite remote academic. I am basically sympathetic to all the points Biesta makes, it is just that the kind of discourse seems unnecessarily abstract. I love Derrida, but I don't think he is needed here.
July 1, 2018
Thought provoking book about the "learnification" of education. Chapters on seven concepts: creativity, communication, teaching, learning, emancipation, democracy, and virtuosity.
January 25, 2021
Dit boek lezen was voor mij nogal een sinusgrafiek. Op de toppen juichend van "ik snap het" en "ja, de man heeft gelijk". En in de dalen mopperend van "ik volg zijn redenering nu echt niet meer" en "hij snapt niks van het alledaagse onderwijs".
Uiteindelijk ga ik volledig mee in de hoofdgedachte van het betoog: onderwijs is geen productieproces van input en output, maar een noodzakelijkerwijs onvoorspelbaar en dus risicovol proces van communicatie. Die hoofdgedachte wordt uitvoerig, diepgravend en filosofisch onderbouwd.
En juist daar haak ik af en toe af. Soms redeneert Biesta heel snel en is dat voor iemand die niet onderlegd is in filosofisch taalgebruik niet helder. Woorden als "inschrijven" (die telkens in de vertaalde fragmenten van Rancière worden gebruikt), "politiek" (dat níet het politieke, "Haagse" proces betekent, maar zoiets als het "in samenhang met elkaar bestaan"), "transcendentie" (dat niet zweverig is) maken het voor een argeloze lezer als ik soms erg lastig om de draad van het betoog vast te houden. Zijn filosofische uitweidingen gaan her en der wel erg ver op het metaniveau van het metaniveau van het onderwerp waar we het eigenlijk over hadden. En zijn eindeloze reeksen citaten van andere denkers, door hemzelf aan elkaar gelijmd tot een soort samenvatting van hun denken doen soms verlangen naar gewoon een korte, overzichtelijke uitleg van hun gedachten in Biesta's eigen woorden.
Zo nu en dan laat Biesta zien dat hij de voeten wel erg ver uit de onderwijsklei heeft getrokken. Als hij betoogt dat "uitleggen" niet wenselijk is, omdat daarmee een ongelijkheid en dus onvrijheid wordt gecreëerd tussen de uitlegger en de leerling en waar de leraar in feite als lesboek wordt gebruikt, lijkt hij niet te zien dat uitleggen een heel veelvormig, gevarieerd en afwisselend proces is. Ik vermoed dat hij daar het engelse "lecturing" voor zich heeft gezien, maar niet (bijvoorbeeld) een zorgvuldig georganiseerd onderwijsleergesprek, waarin leerlingen in communicatie tot begrip komen, waarbij vooraf niet eens per se gepland is welk begrip en hoe dat gesprek moet verlopen. Toch is ook dat een vorm van uitleggen.
Dat gebrek aan pragmatiek speelt het boek überhaupt parten. Hoe kan ik, als goedwillende docent die het in de basis eens is met wat Biesta schrijft, zijn ideeën vertalen naar mijn alledaagse praktijk? Is hiervoor niet een complete systeemherziening van het hele onderwijs nodig? Kan ik dat eigenlijk wel? Biesta roept heel veel zinnige, goede en nuttige vragen op, maar beantwoordt alleen de grote, filosofische kwesties, niet mijn kleine, alledaagse vragen. Maar daar is het boek uiteraard ook niet voor bedoeld.
Dat alles neemt niet weg dat heel, heel veel van wat hij schrijft hout snijdt. Niet alleen de hoofdlijn, maar ook zijn ondersteunende ideeën over communicatie, over lesgeven, over leren en over virtuositeit zijn zeer de moeite waard.
Tenslotte een tip voor lezers zoals ik: begin met de appendix van dit boek, want daarin krijg je Biesta's vertrekpunt helder uiteengezet. Lees dan de epiloog, waarin het hele boek wordt samengevat. Lees daarna per hoofdstuk eerst de inleiding, dan de conclusies en daarna pas de rest van het hoofdstuk. Ik merkte dat ik hem op die manier het best kon volgen.
Uiteindelijk ga ik volledig mee in de hoofdgedachte van het betoog: onderwijs is geen productieproces van input en output, maar een noodzakelijkerwijs onvoorspelbaar en dus risicovol proces van communicatie. Die hoofdgedachte wordt uitvoerig, diepgravend en filosofisch onderbouwd.
En juist daar haak ik af en toe af. Soms redeneert Biesta heel snel en is dat voor iemand die niet onderlegd is in filosofisch taalgebruik niet helder. Woorden als "inschrijven" (die telkens in de vertaalde fragmenten van Rancière worden gebruikt), "politiek" (dat níet het politieke, "Haagse" proces betekent, maar zoiets als het "in samenhang met elkaar bestaan"), "transcendentie" (dat niet zweverig is) maken het voor een argeloze lezer als ik soms erg lastig om de draad van het betoog vast te houden. Zijn filosofische uitweidingen gaan her en der wel erg ver op het metaniveau van het metaniveau van het onderwerp waar we het eigenlijk over hadden. En zijn eindeloze reeksen citaten van andere denkers, door hemzelf aan elkaar gelijmd tot een soort samenvatting van hun denken doen soms verlangen naar gewoon een korte, overzichtelijke uitleg van hun gedachten in Biesta's eigen woorden.
Zo nu en dan laat Biesta zien dat hij de voeten wel erg ver uit de onderwijsklei heeft getrokken. Als hij betoogt dat "uitleggen" niet wenselijk is, omdat daarmee een ongelijkheid en dus onvrijheid wordt gecreëerd tussen de uitlegger en de leerling en waar de leraar in feite als lesboek wordt gebruikt, lijkt hij niet te zien dat uitleggen een heel veelvormig, gevarieerd en afwisselend proces is. Ik vermoed dat hij daar het engelse "lecturing" voor zich heeft gezien, maar niet (bijvoorbeeld) een zorgvuldig georganiseerd onderwijsleergesprek, waarin leerlingen in communicatie tot begrip komen, waarbij vooraf niet eens per se gepland is welk begrip en hoe dat gesprek moet verlopen. Toch is ook dat een vorm van uitleggen.
Dat gebrek aan pragmatiek speelt het boek überhaupt parten. Hoe kan ik, als goedwillende docent die het in de basis eens is met wat Biesta schrijft, zijn ideeën vertalen naar mijn alledaagse praktijk? Is hiervoor niet een complete systeemherziening van het hele onderwijs nodig? Kan ik dat eigenlijk wel? Biesta roept heel veel zinnige, goede en nuttige vragen op, maar beantwoordt alleen de grote, filosofische kwesties, niet mijn kleine, alledaagse vragen. Maar daar is het boek uiteraard ook niet voor bedoeld.
Dat alles neemt niet weg dat heel, heel veel van wat hij schrijft hout snijdt. Niet alleen de hoofdlijn, maar ook zijn ondersteunende ideeën over communicatie, over lesgeven, over leren en over virtuositeit zijn zeer de moeite waard.
Tenslotte een tip voor lezers zoals ik: begin met de appendix van dit boek, want daarin krijg je Biesta's vertrekpunt helder uiteengezet. Lees dan de epiloog, waarin het hele boek wordt samengevat. Lees daarna per hoofdstuk eerst de inleiding, dan de conclusies en daarna pas de rest van het hoofdstuk. Ik merkte dat ik hem op die manier het best kon volgen.
June 2, 2021
4.5 stars.
An excellent if brief exploration of the ends and means of education. Biesta dedicates each of his 7 chapters to a different facet of educational practice, drawing on the ideas of one or two philosophers per chapter. The result is an incredibly interesting treatment of education through diverse thinkers such as Dewey, Derrida, Kierkegaard and Aristotle.
This is not to say that the book is merely pastiche. Biesta draws upon the ideas of other philosophers to illustrate his own main argument: in an environment of constant discourse over educational means, particularly which means are "backed up" by quantitative data, teachers ought to remain conscious of the ends of education. Two ends of education, per Biesta, are often adequately covered. Qualification, which is the transmission of specific knowledge, information and skills, receives the bulk of the attention both in schools and in policy. Socialisation, the induction of students into particular social and cultural ways of doing and being, is the second. Biesta's third end is the most transformative, the most often neglected, and the most ill-served by the new mainstream of educational positivism: subjectification. Subjectification refers to the cultivation of students into subjects capable of critical thought and conscious action, rather than objects to be acted upon. However, the cultivation of subjects is not something that can be reliably reproduced by specific teaching methods (as far as we know, though I'm inclined to agree with Biesta that it's necessarily excluded by narrow prescriptive teaching methods). Developing subjectivity requires space for students to be exposed to new and sometimes unwelcome knowledge from teachers, to exercise freedom, to think for themselves, to deliberate with one another in open and honest discourse. The cultivation of subjectivity in students is a risky process - it is not guaranteed through specific replicable activities, and can very well fail - but it is precisely this risk that ought to be embraced by educators.
The book falls a little short through its brevity, as some concepts and ideas needed to be fleshed out a bit more. Nonetheless, this is a fantastic read for anyone interested in education.
An excellent if brief exploration of the ends and means of education. Biesta dedicates each of his 7 chapters to a different facet of educational practice, drawing on the ideas of one or two philosophers per chapter. The result is an incredibly interesting treatment of education through diverse thinkers such as Dewey, Derrida, Kierkegaard and Aristotle.
This is not to say that the book is merely pastiche. Biesta draws upon the ideas of other philosophers to illustrate his own main argument: in an environment of constant discourse over educational means, particularly which means are "backed up" by quantitative data, teachers ought to remain conscious of the ends of education. Two ends of education, per Biesta, are often adequately covered. Qualification, which is the transmission of specific knowledge, information and skills, receives the bulk of the attention both in schools and in policy. Socialisation, the induction of students into particular social and cultural ways of doing and being, is the second. Biesta's third end is the most transformative, the most often neglected, and the most ill-served by the new mainstream of educational positivism: subjectification. Subjectification refers to the cultivation of students into subjects capable of critical thought and conscious action, rather than objects to be acted upon. However, the cultivation of subjects is not something that can be reliably reproduced by specific teaching methods (as far as we know, though I'm inclined to agree with Biesta that it's necessarily excluded by narrow prescriptive teaching methods). Developing subjectivity requires space for students to be exposed to new and sometimes unwelcome knowledge from teachers, to exercise freedom, to think for themselves, to deliberate with one another in open and honest discourse. The cultivation of subjectivity in students is a risky process - it is not guaranteed through specific replicable activities, and can very well fail - but it is precisely this risk that ought to be embraced by educators.
The book falls a little short through its brevity, as some concepts and ideas needed to be fleshed out a bit more. Nonetheless, this is a fantastic read for anyone interested in education.
April 30, 2025
En pædagogisk og "samfundspædagogisk" spændende bog.
Den smukke risiko handler om, at pædagogik og uddannelse må, hvis det stadig skal være pædagogik og uddannelse, være radikalt åben og skabe rammerne og muligheden for, at eleverne kan indgå i disse fællesskaber på en fri og myndig måde. At eleverne gør dette er dog altid kun et håb. Heri ligger risikoen. For at eleverne skal kunne være frie, må der også være mulighed for, at de ikke tager imod eller at de gør noget andet med det, der er givet, end hensigten var.
Biesta argumenterer således for, at vi må droppe idéerne om, at pædagogik og uddannelse kan (mål-)styres, evidensbaseres og gøres forudsigelig. Hvis man gør dette, er der ikke længere tale om uddannelse til og gennem frihed eller emancipatorisk uddannelse - i stedet bevæger vi os hen imod en ren reproduktion - kvalifikation og socialisation uden subjektifikation -, som ifølge Biesta, aldrig kan være pædagogisk eller uddannende.
Særligt interessant er hans inddragelse af Levinas' den Anden; Arendts handlingsbegreb med de dertilhørende idéer om natalitet og pluralitet; og Aristoteles' idé om praxis og phronesis i refleksionen af underviserens eller pædagogens arbejde som social kunst, der har brug for en visdom og dyder.
Den smukke risiko handler om, at pædagogik og uddannelse må, hvis det stadig skal være pædagogik og uddannelse, være radikalt åben og skabe rammerne og muligheden for, at eleverne kan indgå i disse fællesskaber på en fri og myndig måde. At eleverne gør dette er dog altid kun et håb. Heri ligger risikoen. For at eleverne skal kunne være frie, må der også være mulighed for, at de ikke tager imod eller at de gør noget andet med det, der er givet, end hensigten var.
Biesta argumenterer således for, at vi må droppe idéerne om, at pædagogik og uddannelse kan (mål-)styres, evidensbaseres og gøres forudsigelig. Hvis man gør dette, er der ikke længere tale om uddannelse til og gennem frihed eller emancipatorisk uddannelse - i stedet bevæger vi os hen imod en ren reproduktion - kvalifikation og socialisation uden subjektifikation -, som ifølge Biesta, aldrig kan være pædagogisk eller uddannende.
Særligt interessant er hans inddragelse af Levinas' den Anden; Arendts handlingsbegreb med de dertilhørende idéer om natalitet og pluralitet; og Aristoteles' idé om praxis og phronesis i refleksionen af underviserens eller pædagogens arbejde som social kunst, der har brug for en visdom og dyder.
May 1, 2021
I really appreciate this book.
"It is this misguided impatience that pushes education into
a direction where teachers’ salaries and even their jobs are made dependent
upon their alleged ability to increase their students’ exam scores. It is this
misguided impatience that has resulted in the medicalization of education,
where children are being made fit for the educational system, rather than that
we ask where the causes of this misfit lie and who, therefore, needs treatment
most: the child or society. The educational way, the slow, difficult, frustrating,
and weak way, may therefore not be the most popular way in an impatient
society. But in the long run it may well turn out to be the only sustainable
way, since we all know that systems aimed at the total control of what human
beings do and think eventually collapse under their own weight, if they have
not already been cracked open from the inside before." p.4
"It is this misguided impatience that pushes education into
a direction where teachers’ salaries and even their jobs are made dependent
upon their alleged ability to increase their students’ exam scores. It is this
misguided impatience that has resulted in the medicalization of education,
where children are being made fit for the educational system, rather than that
we ask where the causes of this misfit lie and who, therefore, needs treatment
most: the child or society. The educational way, the slow, difficult, frustrating,
and weak way, may therefore not be the most popular way in an impatient
society. But in the long run it may well turn out to be the only sustainable
way, since we all know that systems aimed at the total control of what human
beings do and think eventually collapse under their own weight, if they have
not already been cracked open from the inside before." p.4
April 1, 2023
It was a book worth reading. If you are familiar with gert's ideas about learning and education you might probably guess what the risk Is.
He is arguing in seven chapters that education substantially contains the risk. It is not about teachers' weakness (it there are any) it is in the essence of education.
Personally, love the creativity and emancipation chapter.
He is arguing in seven chapters that education substantially contains the risk. It is not about teachers' weakness (it there are any) it is in the essence of education.
Personally, love the creativity and emancipation chapter.
July 14, 2019
A view of education I fully buy into, but arguments are presented too briefly. Each chapter is more a starting point than a finished article. This leads to a feeling of the book being incomplete or lacking a unifying thread. Having said this, lots of incredibly important insights.
January 3, 2022
Builds beyond the work of other philosophers and thinkers to create a compelling vision of humanistic education. If you believe there's nothing as practical as good theory you'll enjoy and be inspired by this book. The clarity and concision of the author is an added bonus.
Want to read
March 16, 2021Really interesting
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 30, 2024
Ik heb hem in het Nederlands gelezen. Zeer pittig maar ongelofelijk fundamenteel denken over onderwijzen. Elke docent moet dit gelezen hebben.
January 8, 2026
Dit boek laat je willen stoppen met je studie, al vind je je studie nog zo leuk.
Ik lees nog liever Twilight.
Ik lees nog liever Twilight.
February 27, 2020
Short and inspiring. Biesta is sharp as a knife in his analysis of education. In this book, he shows us some of the pitfalls of modern education and learning but also provides alternative ways to look at the matter.
The book has some complicated passages, but the summaries at the end of each chapter make their understanding easier. Biesta is very knowledgeable in its references and presents old and modern thinkers through his book.
This book is for people who are interested in the philosophy of education and want a fresh way to look at the way we conceive school and learning.
The book has some complicated passages, but the summaries at the end of each chapter make their understanding easier. Biesta is very knowledgeable in its references and presents old and modern thinkers through his book.
This book is for people who are interested in the philosophy of education and want a fresh way to look at the way we conceive school and learning.
May 12, 2022
Pittig om doorheen te komen, wel hele interessante visie.
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