Rescuing the ghost from the machine: towards responsive education and beyond explanatory machinery systems

Year 2015, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 32 - 40, 01.05.2015

Maria Formosinho Carlos Sousa Reis Paulo Jesus

Abstract

The significance of the “Bologna Turn” in European Higher Education, which supposedly refocused the process of teaching and learning and was expected to bring about a pedagogical reform, is discussed mainly by clarifying why it has not in fact realized the expected advances on performativity and standardization. We show how the “Bologna Process” falls into the mechanistic paradigm that Rancière (1987) acutely criticized and through which the educational intervening subjects are reduced to a functional dimension. We draw on Rancière’s criticism to make clear the dynamics of the “deranging machine”, while we call for Buber’s “pedagogy of encounter” as having the potential for opening a new space to escape from the current situation by a “pedagogy of an inspiring way of speaking”, as this may act as adequate conveyer for accomplishing the desired meaningful encounters. These issues lead us to consider why and how education requires a special “pedagogical tact”: the tact for understanding that education is an antinomical process that flows from, through and towards a meaningful dialogue, so that one can recognize that autonomy is constructed in relation to dependency, freedom in relation to compliance and care in relation to some amount of constraint.

Keywords

Bologna Process, Higher Education Pedagogy of Encounter, Dialogism

References

• Asensio, J. M. (2004). Una educación para el diálogo. Barcelona: Paidós.
• Bates, A. (2014). (Mis)Understanding Strategy as a ‘Spectacular Intervention’: A Phenomenological Reflection on the Strategy Orientations Underpinning School Improvement in England. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 33(4), 353-367.
• Biesta, G. (2015). What is education for? On good education, teacher judgment and education professionalism. European Journal of Education, 50(1), 75-87.
• Buber, M. (2010/1923). I and Thou. Connecticut: Martino Publishing.
• Cachapuz, A. F. (2009). A construção do espaço europeu de ensino superior: Um case study da globalização, Revista Espaço Pedagógico, 16(2), 123-134.
• Dhillon, P. A., & Standish, P. (2000). Jean-François Lyotard: Just education in passing. In P. A. Dhillon & P. Standish (Eds.), Lyotard: Just education (pp. 11-18). London: Routledge.
• Díaz, J. M. H. (2010). La universidade de nuestro tiempo y conflicto de racionalidades. Ensino Magazine, XIII, 149.
• Díaz, J. M. H. (2012a). Desmantelar la Universidad Pşblica. Ensino Magazine, XV, 167.
• Díaz, J. M. H. (2012b). Universidad sin horizontes. Ensino Magazine, XV, 170.
• Díaz, J. M. H. (2012c). Fetichismos en la Universidad. Ensino Magazine, XV, 177.
• European Commission (2013). Improving the quality of teaching and learning in Europe’s higher education institutions. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
• European Higher Education Area Ministers Conference (1999). The Bologna Declaration. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/article-details.aspx?ArticleId=43
• European Higher Education Area Ministers Conference (2007). London Communique: Towards the European Higher Education Area, responding to challenges in a globalised world. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/article-details.aspx?ArticleId=43
• European Higher Education Area Ministers Conference (2009). Leuven Communique: The Bologna Process 2020, The European Higher Education Area in the new decade. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/article-details.aspx?ArticleId=43
• European Higher Education Area Ministers Conference (2010). Budapest-Vienna Declaration on the European Higher Education Area. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/article-details.aspx?ArticleId=43
• European Higher Education Area Ministers Conference (2012). Bucharest Communique: Making the Most of Our Potential, Consolidating the European Higher Education Area. Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/article-details.aspx?ArticleId=43
• Fejes, A. (2008a). European citizens under construction: The Bologna process analysed from a governmentality perspective. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 40(4), 515-530.
• Fejes, A. (2008b). Standardising Europe: The Bologna Process and new modes of governing. Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences, 1(2), 25-49.
• Foucault, M. (1984). Histoire de la sexualité III: Le souci de soi. Paris: Gallimard.
• Foucault, M. (2001). L’herméneutique du sujet: Cours au Collège de France 1981-1982. Paris: Gallimard/Seuil.
• Heidegger, M. (1927/2008). Being and time (transl. J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson). New York: Harper & Row.
• Kant, I. (2005). Fundamental principles of metaphysics of morals. New York: Dover.
• Koestler, A. (1967). The ghost in the machine. London: Penguin. Magna Charta
• Universitatum (1988). Retrieved from
• http://www.magna-charta.org/library/userfiles/file/mc_english.pdf
• McHenry, H. D. (1997) Education as encounter: Buber’s pragmatic ontology. Educational Theory, 47(3), 341-357.
• Melville, H. (2009). The happy failure. New York: Harper Collins.
• Montaigne, M. E. (1595/1958). The complete essays. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• Morin, E. (2003) O método (vol. V): A humanidade da humanidade, a identidade humana. Mem Martins: Publicações Europa-América.
• Neves, I. M. C. A. (2004). O homo educandus, ser agónico ou ser para a felicidade? – O contributo da educação para o desvelamento da intencionalidade própria do homem enquanto ser-em-situação-limite. In A. D. Carvalho (Org.), Problemáticas filosóficas da educação (pp. 65-130). Porto: Edições Afrontamento.
• Orbe, F. B., Bondía, J. L, & Sangrá, J.-C. (2006). Pensar la educación desde la experiencia. Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia, 40(1), 233-259.
• Pourtois, J. P. & Desmet, H. (1997). L’éducation postmoderne. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
• Rancière, J. (1987). Le maître ignorant: Cinq leçons sur l’émancipation intellectuelle. Paris: Fayard.
• Reis, C. (2014). Educação e Cultura Mediática: Análise de implicações deseducativas. Lisboa: Âncora Editora.
• Sorbonne Declaration. Retrieved from http://www.wg.aegee.org/ewg/sorbonne.htm
• Vansieleghem, N. & Masschelein, J. (2012). Education as invitation to speak: On the teacher who does not speak. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 46(1), 85-99.