Abstract

SIMONS, Maarten  and  MASSCHELEIN, Jan. School experiences: an attempt to find a pedagogical voice. child.philo [online]. 2017, vol.13, n.28, pp.649-669. ISSN 1984-5987.  https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2017.28320.

It is striking to notice how learning and education are treated by philosophers and political and social theorists. In our contribution we will discuss the 'social learning philosophers' (e.g.Habermas, Latour), the 'enfance-philosophers' (e.g. Lyotard, Agamben, Arendt) and the 'game-philosophers' (e.g. Wittgenstein). From the perspective of these adult or grown-up philosophies and theories, learning is instrumentalized and, as a consequence, it is often marginalized, ridiculed or - when acknowledged - celebrated as a unique case, example or metaphor. To the extent that the importance of learning is recognized, it is about 'natural' learning and certainly not about 'artificial' schooling. In our contribution we exactly want to speak pedagogically about what is at stake in school learning. Instead of narrating about the (good, bad, great, sad) experiences of learning at school, this pedagogical language seeks to give voice to the experience while school learning. Not the experience of a condition where someone is not (yet) being able to, for instance, write or count. But also not the experience of (already) being able to write or count. School experience is what is experienced at the moment that writing or counting becomes a possibility; what is experienced before being able to write, but after not being able to write. School experiences refer to the collective experience of being-in-the-middle (of things), the experience of an interrupted course of life where new courses become possible, the experience of knowledge and ability after making a mistake. We want to argue that from a pedagogical perspective school is not an institution but the always artificial arrangement of time, space and matter you have to go to for these experiences. However, philosophers and social and political theorists often (rather) forget they too went to school.

Keywords : School; Pedagogy; Experience..

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