This article outlines how the international push for inclusive education cannot be aligned with current education systems centred on neoliberal ideals of individualism, measurement, and competition. The way that these systems are organised means that a proportion of (usually marginalised) students are necessarily excluded. In order to meaningfully address the global education crisis, that sees millions of children and young people either out of school or unengaged with learning, this ontological misalignment must be acknowledged, and discourse and engagement around it (...) must be promoted. Drawing from the work of Donella Meadows, I argue that ‘high leverage points’ (information flows, rules, system goals, mindsets) are crucial places to intervene in education systems. Intervention at such points, while challenging, has the potential to lead to transformational and sustainable change; change that current ‘low leverage point’ initiatives fail to produce. I conclude with a call for further discourse and research into an examination of ‘high leverage points’ within education systems, how they interact, and how the development of an associated framework would be beneficial for researchers and development partners. (shrink)

Professional higher education is expected to educate large numbers of students to become innovative professionals within a time frame of three or four years. A mission impossible? Not necessarily, according to Henriëtta Joosten who is a philosopher as well as a teacher. She uses the experimental, liberating, but also dangerous ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to rethink contemporary higher professional education. What does it mean to teach students to strive for better in a professional world where horizons tend to disperse and (...) the possibility of long-term orientation is disappearing? Following Nietzsche, five key elements of striving for better are explored: uncertainty, excellence, critical thinking, truth seeking friendship, and learning through ups and downs. From these five perspectives, Joosten scrutinises existing educational discourses on professional higher education in search for openings to transform these discourses into new, more appropriate ones. Understanding excellence as rising above oneself, she argues for a learning environment in which all students are encouraged to excel. Such an environment allows for uncertainty and learning through ups and downs. Furthermore, teachers are prepared to risk their certainties in order to let a joined quest - that is, a quest of students and teacher - for better truths arise. Using the Nietzschean-inspired notions which have been developed in the study, Joosten describes two factual cases. One case relates to a course in close reading: first-year students jointly read philosophical and scientific texts. The second case involves a group of eleven senior students developing a course in project management. These descriptions and the recommendations serve as a catalyst for constructive debate on the question of how all students can be equipped for a dynamic professional world. (shrink)

Teachers’ engagement in critical intellectual and research work in England has been challenged in recent years under hegemonic policies and practices in teacher education. Since 2019, centralisation, standardisation and accountability in teacher education have intensified, along with explicit criticism of university involvement. Some describe teaching in England as a ‘semi-profession’ where teachers are positioned as technicians and their engagement in wider ethical, moral and intellectual endeavours are discouraged. Within this challenging policy and practice context, this paper argues that there is (...) a need to reconsider the space of professional learning over professional development for teachers, and that Master’s level qualifications can be site for potentially transformative learning experiences for teachers. An empirical research project is reported, where teachers’ lived experiences of engaging in critical intellectual and research work through part-time MA Education were systematically mapped and interrogated. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and video diaries. Analysis of significant episodes of each teacher’s narrative unlocked an understanding of their shared journeys as ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘belonging’ as a teacher and a researcher. Conclusions and recommendations are presented which challenge current reductive policies and practices along with a call to prioritise teachers’ critical and intellectual knowledge and research work. (shrink)

While the aesthetics of Rancière is a well-explored topic, there has been something missing from the reception of his works, and that is the relation between Rancière’s aesthetics and music. However, in recent years an interest in this relation has resulted in several academic contributions, which is sign enough that there is in fact a musical element in his works. Rancière himself, in response to this reception, has acknowledged as much. Music is a human form of expression that uses the (...) physicality of air to produce vibrations that encounter and resonate with the human body. Musicality is the ability to attend to such vibrations and harness the expectations and surprises that they bring about. In this article, I explore how a musical approach to Rancière’s writings can inform educational philosophy, especially as regards the practice of teaching. Particular attention is paid to his notion of the sensorium as a sensible realm where we experience and encounter difference and otherness, in political events as well as in teaching situations. Attending ethically to these situations is predicated on a certain sensibility that involves certain aesthetic qualities. In this article, I explore this sensibility as a particular educational musicality. Drawing from educational philosophy, the aesthetic theory of Jacques Rancière, and music philosophy, I connect this musicality of teaching to an ability to navigate in an ethical space that comes to life through a material/sensible community of interests formed in teaching practice. I use the term acousmatic experience as an explorative device in an attempt to depict teaching practice as something that can bring about a specific educational sensorium. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic raised not only overwhelming practical challenges but also deep ethical dilemmas for educators. There have been few efforts to connect these challenges to either ethical dilemmas teachers faced in pre-pandemic times or to philosophical analyses of complex normative terrain of teachers’ work. We facilitated eleven discussion groups with 101 educators from seven countries on the dilemmas they faced due to COVID-19. Analysis of these sessions reveals how the pandemic amplified, exacerbated and augmented pre-pandemic educational dilemmas in ways (...) that recalibrated teachers’ core values and beliefs, and highlights the importance of engaging teachers in ethical dialogue. (shrink)

Exploring teaching as an upper secondary school teacher through lived experience offers pedagogical insights that have been challenged over a period of 25 years, when neoliberal educational policies gradually transformed the conditions for teaching in Swedish schools. The article is grounded in the assumption that the teaching profession is complex and there are multiple tacit dimensions inherent in being and becoming a teacher. Several of these dimensions are captured by the notion of pedagogical tact and have to be learned through (...) practice. However, over the past few decades, the implementation of neoliberal policies in the Swedish education sector have changed the conditions for teaching, and created an area of tension between the teacher’s pedagogical alignment and the educational practices influenced by neoliberal values. The aim of the study is to describe how the author experienced these tensions, and what they meant for her becoming and being a teacher in three different pedagogical sites: a higher education preparatory program, a vocational preparatory program, and in adult education. The description is grounded in the lifeworld phenomenological approach and carried out through personal narrative. (shrink)

In an age of nationalisation of international educational policy, or vice versa, the politics and conflicts behind such policies often take centre stage to the detriment of professional expertise. In response, this article develops a nuanced critical realism to propose a practice-based development and implementation of educational policy reforms. Based on empirical reports of head teachers’ subversive practice, the article concludes by highlighting that professional expertise is a central component, dubbed ‘formless capability’, that all stakeholders use to turn policy intentions (...) into policy actions. Actuality consists of the three traditional domains of critical realism – the real, the actual and the empirical – whose importance is derived from whether it is a means to or an end in itself. It is argued here that empirical experiences of leading schools are the stage of actuality that is directly... (shrink)