Gert Biesta, Professor of Education, Brunel University London
Over the past decades, discussions about education have increasingly been framed in terms of learning. This has also changed the perception of the work and identity of the teacher, who has been repositioned as a ‘facilitator of learning.’ While, at a superficial level, the turn towards learning seems to make sense, the ongoing ‘learnification’ of educational discourse and practice is actually quite problematic, particularly for the emancipatory ambitions of education. In my presentation I will analyse these developments in more detail in order to argue that teaching should not be seen as the opposite of educational emancipation, but rather as central to it. In doing so I will seek to reconnect teaching to Continental traditions of ‘pedagogy,’ also in order to show the unique contribution such traditions can make to contemporary schooling.