Being a Teacher: From Technicist to Existential Accounts, in conversation with Jean-Paul Sartre

199 Pages·2022·6.541 MB·English

by  Alison M. Brady

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 19
Alison M. Brady
Being a
Teacher
From Technicist to Existential Accounts,
in conversation with Jean-Paul Sartre
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories
in Education
Volume 19
Series Editors
Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Editorial Board Members
Gert Biesta, Arts & Social Sci, Halsbury Bldg, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
David Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Jorge Larrosa, Barcelona University, Barcelona, Spain
Nel Noddings, Stanford University, Ocean Grove, NJ, USA
Roland Reichenbach, Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
Naoko Saito, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University,
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Paul Smeyers, Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University
and KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium
Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK
Sharon Todd, Professor of Education, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education signifies new directions and
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Editors: Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Belgium; Lynda Stone, University of North
Carolina, USA.
Editorial Board: Gert Biesta, Brunel University London, UK; David Hansen,
Columbia University, USA; Jorge Larossa, Barcelona University, Spain; Nel
Noddings, Stanford University, USA; Roland Reichenbach, University of Zurich,
Switzerland; Naoko Saito, Kyoto University, Japan; Paul Smeyers, Ghent University
& KU Leuven, Belgium; Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK;
Sharon Todd, Maynooth University, Ireland.
Alison M. Brady
Being a Teacher
From Technicist to Existential Accounts,
in conversation with Jean-Paul Sartre
Alison M. Brady
IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society
University College London
London, UK
ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education
ISBN 978-981-19-7322-2 ISBN 978-981-19-7323-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7323-9
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Preface
Against the current grain of teacher accountability, this book aims to reconceptual-
ise how we might account for teaching through an engagement with Jean-Paul
Sartre’s early existentialist thought.
Part I situates the discussion in relation to school self-evaluation policy in the
Republic of Ireland, a concrete example that will serve as a springboard for explor-
ing how teaching is accounted for in current accountability regimes. Here, I investi-
gate the extent to which this policy represents a ‘technicist’ understanding of
teaching. I aim to show how this technicist understanding not only impacts the ways
in which we recognise effective practice, but also influences our conception of
teaching in a broader sense, particularly in terms of how we might account for what
teaching involves.
Part II turns to the demanding account of being a human in Sartre’s thought.
Here, it is argued that the classroom serves as a microcosm where many of these
ideas can be explored. By paying close attention to everyday examples of teaching,
I aim to build upon Sartre’s key concepts related to the self, freedom, bad faith, and
the Other, such that they might open up new ways of thinking about the practices of
teaching.
Part III considers how to account for teaching in light of this. Since so much of
teacher accountability is embedded within the paradigm of ‘effectiveness’, the cur-
rent focus is often on how to measure or ‘prove’ our accounts of teaching in neat,
accurate forms. But given the everyday complexities that underpin teaching, as well
as the vulnerabilities and uncertainty that it so often involves, I argue for the cre-
ation of a space in which to reimagine forms of accounting that move from techni-
cist ways of thinking to existential sensitivity in relation to one’s practice as a
teacher.
London, UK Alison M. Brady
v
Acknowledgements
This book sprang from my PhD research, and in total, it has taken me the best part
of 7 years to complete. For that reason, I am sure there will be people I forget
to thank.
First of all, I would like to express my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to my for-
mer PhD supervisor, Prof. Paul Standish, who has had much input over the years,
particularly in my formative years as a PhD student. I would also like to thank the
other members of staff from the Centre for Philosophy at the UCL Institute of
Education as well as the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain for this
reason as well.
Of course, thanks to family and friends – particularly Giulio, who is most cer-
tainly a calming force in my life!
Finally, for those who have read or are reading this – colleagues, students, the
series editors, proofreaders, not to mention all those voluntary, anonymous review-
ers over the years – thank you.
But above all, this book is dedicated to teachers – I hope there is a resonance here
that validates and helps to make sense of your experiences.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Why I Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Why Sartre and Why Now? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.1 Part I: Evaluating Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.2 P art II: Sartre, Existentialism and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.3 Part III: Being a Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Part I Evaluating Teachers
2 Self-Evaluation and the Technicist Logic of Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 The Neoliberal Turn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Neoliberalism in the Irish Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 School Self-Evaluation: Autonomy, Accountability
and Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3.1 The Balance of Accountability and Autonomy . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.2 D eveloping a Culture and a Common Language . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3.3 The Focus on Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4 Towards a New Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Part II Sartre, Existentialism and Education
3 Navigating Vocabularies: Transitioning from Policy
to Existentialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1 The Origins of Existentialist Thought? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.2 Common Themes in Existentialist Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2.1 T he Individual in a Disenchanted World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.2 The Lure of Nihilism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2.3 Reactions to Scientism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2.4 The Committed Individual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
ix
x Contents
3.3 Sartrian Existentialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3.1 Existentialism and Phenomenology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.3.2 The ‘Pre-reflective’ Cogito . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.3 Facticity and Transcendence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.3.4 Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.3.5 The Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4 An Educational Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4 Putting Oneself Into Words: Sartre and the Production
of Selfhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.1 Phenomenology of the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2 Transcendental and Material Conceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.1 The Transcendental Ego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.2.2 The Material Ego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3 The Produced Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.3.1 Uncertain States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3.2 Actions and Dispositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.3.3 T he Self and the Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.4 Freedom, Responsibility and the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5 Freedom and Facticity in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1 Sartre’s ‘Phenomenological Ontology’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1.1 Being-In-Itself and Being-For-Itself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.1.2 Concrete Nothingness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.2 The Pursuit of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.2.1 The Fundamental Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.3 Freedom and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.3.1 Freedom as a Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.3.2 Anguished Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.4 Freedom, Responsibility and Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.5 Freedom and Facticity in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.5.1 Problematic Dualisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
5.5.2 Concrete Nothingness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.5.3 Professional Judgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.5.4 F reedom, Facticity and the Fundamental Project . . . . . . . . 91
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
6 Bad Faith, Sincerity and the Role of the Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.1 Uneasy Tensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.2 Bad Faith and Self-Deception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
6.2.1 The ‘Unconscious’ Explanation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
6.3 Sincerity and the Forms of Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
6.4 The Faith of Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6.5 Being Who You Are in the Classroom? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Contents xi
6.5.1 Role-Playing in the Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
6.5.2 Responding to the Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.5.3 F rom Individual and Institutional Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7 The Look of the Other and the Experience of Teaching:
The Failure of Solipsism and the Pursuit of Vulnerability . . . . . . . . . 113
7.1 From Being an Individual to Being for the Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7.2 The Look of the Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.2.1 T he Other and the Production of the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.2.2 Perpetual Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.3 Our Embodied Relationship with Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.4 The Self and the Other in the Educational Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.4.1 The Solipsistic Teacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7.4.2 Being Seen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
7.4.3 A n Armistice with the Other? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
7.4.4 T he Suspension of Being-for-the-Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
7.5 Being an ‘Authentic’ Teacher? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Part III Accounting for Oneself in Teaching
8 Parrhesia, Bad Faith and Accounting for Oneself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.1 Sartre, Foucault and Care of the Self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.2 Care of the Self as Parrhesia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
8.3 Parrhesia and Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
8.4 Autobiographical Writing as a Parrhesiastic Practice . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.4.1 Frankness and (Self-)Criticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
8.4.2 T ruth, Sincerity and Bad Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.4.3 T he Scene of the Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.5 The Beautiful Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.6 Parrhesiastic Techniques in Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.6.1 Self-Examination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
8.6.2 Self-Diagnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
8.6.3 Self-Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
8.7 Trusting Teachers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
9 Towards an Existentialist Account of Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
9.1 An Anecdotal Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
9.1.1 Analysing Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
9.2 Technicist Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.2.1 Language and Accuracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
9.2.2 The Disposition of Account-Giving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
9.2.3 Cultivated Distrust? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167