Gert Biesta

Written collaboratively by two undergraduate students and one professor, this article explores what it would mean to teach existentialism ‘‘existentially.’’ We conducted a survey of how Existentialism is currently taught in universities across North America, concluding that, while existentialism courses tend to resemble other undergraduate phi- losophy courses, existentialist texts challenge us to rethink conventional teaching practices. Looking to thinkers like Kierkegaard, Beauvoir and Arendt for insights into the nature of pedagogy, as well as recent work by Gert Biesta, we lay out the four qualities that we propose characterize ‘‘existentialist’’ teaching practices: an emphasis on teaching over learning and on the ‘‘how’’ over the what; the cultivation of newness as well as capacities for resistance. Reflecting on the significance of existentialism for classroom dynamics, we conclude by examining the tensions between existentialist commitments to freedom and prevailing trends in higher education. This essay raises questions about the emancipatory potential of existentialist philosophies, especially in the context of undergraduate classrooms.

The theme of this book is 'arts education as philosophy', and it is to teachers working in whatever capacity , from early childhood to tertiary level, to researchers, artists in the community, or those studying arts in education that this combined text is aimed. The art forms addressed include: art, dance, drama, music and film studies, with case studies from early years' practice to the conservatoire. This introduction outlines the two primary philosophical points of reference and how, in this arts education text, these philosophical positions are discussed by each author, together with an outline of each chapter.

Childhood & Philosophy, V. 13, N. 28 (Sept.-Dec. 2017), pp. 521-536; ISSN 1984-5987
Gert Biesta thinks that teaching is imperiled by the contemporary emphasis on student learning and the constructivist epistemology behind it – a phenomenon he refers to as " learnification. " For him, learning transforms the world into an object of understanding and adaption, positioning the self at its center. Biesta criticizes P4/wC for falling in line with such learnification, for helping students to learn the critical thinking skills requisite to adapt themselves to global capitalism without critiquing it. Biesta uses pragmatism in general, and John Dewey's work on education in particular, to characterize and explain learnification, which makes his criticisms of P4/wC all the more pointed, given the influence of Dewey on that movement. In this paper we challenge Biesta's use pragmatism as representative of learnification. We show that pragmatism offers important insights and practices that not only make learning richer than intelligent adaptation, but blurs the distinctions between adaptation and reconstruction, and between learning and ethical relationality. We argue that pragmatism neither devalues teaching nor restricts learning to the individual's mind. It promotes inquiry as a socially embedded, experimental, and indeterminate process of self/world reconstruction. We show connections between Biesta's Levinas-inspired focus on interruption, suspension, and sustenance, and the pragmatist emphasis on doubt, interest, and community of inquiry. For pragmatism, to learn is essentially to self-correct one's understanding, desire and/or behavior, but only as a result of being challenged and helped by others. Moreover, the experience of being changed by participation in a community is never merely hermeneutic or intellectual, but also always ethical, or even spiritual. We conclude, contrary to Biesta, that the pragmatism of Charles Peirce, Dewey, Richard Rorty, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp and Philip Cam conceives of constructivist education as a site for radical inter-subjective, inter-generational address and response, and for the radical questioning and subversion of personal, societal and cultural ways of life. keywords: biesta; pragmatism; instrumentalism; teaching; philosophy for/with children. o pragmatismo e o desaprendimento da aprendização resumo Biesta pensa que o ensino está em perigo pela ênfase contemporânea na aprendizagem dos alunos e a epistemologia construtivista por trás disso-um fenômeno que ele se refere como "aprendização". Para ele, aprender transforma o mundo em um objeto de compreensão e adaptação, posicionando o self no seu centro. Biesta critica P4/wC por se adaptar a essa aprendizagem, por ajudar os alunos a aprender as habilidades de pensamento crítico

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an innovative educational approach that dates back to the 1960s. However, the twenty-first century goal of sustainable education poses a challenge to PBL, especially as it relates to isolation. Here we discuss the underlying issue of isolation in three respects. First, the information-processing model of PBL depends on generalized skills, whereas real life problem-solving skills involve context-bound cognitive processes. Second, in all models of PBL, the focus on knowledge acquisition for a specific problem improves performance but separates education from the world at large. Third, the existing culture of measurement strengthens the aforementioned isolating effects. In response, we introduce a conceptual approach based on Hannah Arendt's technical notion of 'world'. We make suggestions to meet the criteria of sustainable education by reconnecting PBL to our shared world, and emphasizing a responsibility for this shared world.