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In this text I discuss two events in which I learned something important about life and about education in order to formulate in a precise manner two propositions for my pedagogical creed. In focus for both are the interrelatedness of theory and life. The stories are told through the lenses of Emmanuel Levinas's and Jacques Rancière's thinking, but the stories also are shown to be essential in my understanding of their thinking. The first story is about learning ethics as a consequence of meeting an old man on a remote island and the second story is about teaching, when a young girl in a situation of war taught me something important about political life. In a final section I discuss briefly what those theoretical/practical experiences and memories bring to my understanding of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What can education do? A critique of an idealised understanding of education. In this article I argue that an idealised understanding of education is problematic in two ways. First it neutralises and makes normal an unequal distribution of wealth and power by identifying those who are to be included as excluded, thereby establishing a foundational inequality. Secondly I argue that a depoliticised understanding of education makes inequality seemingly natural and normal in the larger discourse of education. In the article I show three contexts in which inequality is produced: educational reform, educational research and developmental psychology applied to education. In the second part of the article I develop a line of thought that starts with equality and argue that the assumption of equality is necessary for an education that aims at intellectual emancipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A speech introducing the 44th Northeastern Educational Research Association (NERA) congress on the social justice, equality, and solidarity in education system, is presented.

In this paper I discuss some conditions for understanding teaching as an act of responsibility towards an other, rather than as an instrumental act identified through epistemology. I first put the latter into context through a critical reading of teaching as it is inscribed in humanistic discourses on education. Within these discourses, I explore how students are treated as objects of knowledge that reinforce the teacher's ego. I contend that the taking up of this position makes not only an ethical relation to the student impossible, but also disqualifies any type of meaningful social relation. Therefore I argue that teachers have to give up their position on the safe side of knowledge and participate in the time of risk when meeting the other means to take responsibility for that other from a position of vulnerability. Moreover, it is precisely because of this risk that teaching as an ethical relation becomes possible and where it begins to resound with poetry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the paradigm of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben focusing on the work of Harvey Shapiro about the Agamben's paradigm on educational philosophy and theory. The author mentions that Shapiro demonstrates two kinds of educational theory such as deconstructive and hermeneutics educational theory. He states that Shapiro's work shows the importance of paradigmatic education such as informing practice and challenging educational understanding.

The article offers the author's response to Claudia W. Ruitenberg's essay "Learning to Articulate: form Ethical Motivation to Political Demands." The author argues that Ruitenberg's perspective of democracy seems to deny the constitutive nature of disagreement. According to him, this viewpoint leads to the abandonment of the very dimension of deliberation which is truly political. He believes that the issue of disengagement is not about learning at all, but instead, it is about our attentiveness to the way in which we understand and respond to the things that we see and hear.

The manifesto for education was, at the time, an attempt to answer a number of issues that concern education. After some years of its publication we return to its foundations and reflect on them in the light of current concerns. In these lines we revisit the manifesto knowing that many of the aims and objectives of that publication are present today and invite us to continue the struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the 'north' and the 'south.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26‐county Irish Free State (South) and the 6‐county Northern Ireland (North) in the 1920s following the partition of Ireland, through the lens of educational documentation, primarily national primary school curricula. The focus on both jurisdictions is interesting in the context of partition, exploring the sometimes divergent and often convergent ways in which children were conceptualised across borders and boundaries. This article reveals, using Sorin and Galloway's framework as a conceptual and analytical tool, that conceptualisations of children were broadly similar in the North and South but differed in their focus and enactment in both fledgling states. These disparities are largely attributable to the very different political, social and religious orientations of both jurisdictions and the use of education as a vehicle for nation‐building, as well as identity and gender formation. The article also explores alternative conceptualisations of children in education policy in the North and South by presenting case study 'outliers' of educational provision. A century since partition, conclusions and implications are noted that resonate with contemporary elements of convergence and divergence on educational policy and the conceptualisation of children across the island of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]