The Precarious Future of Education: Risk and Uncertainty in Ecology, Curriculum, Learning, and Technology

319 Pages·2017·3.03 MB·English

by  jan jagodzinski (eds.)

THE PRECARIOUS FUTURE
OF EDUCATION
Risk and Uncertainty in Ecology,
Curriculum, Learning, and Technology
edited by
jan jagodzinski
Education, Psychoanalysis, and Social Transformation
Education, Psychoanalysis, and Social
Transformation
Series Editors
jan jagodzinski
Department of Secondary Education
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Mark Bracher
English Department
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio, USA
Aim of the Series
Within the last three decades, education as a political, moral, and
ideological practice has become central to rethinking not only the role of
public and higher education, but also the emergence of pedagogical sites
outside of the schools-which include but are not limited to the Internet,
television, fi lm, magazines, and the media of print culture. Education as
both a form of schooling and public pedagogy reaches into every aspect
of political, economic, and social life. What is particularly important in
this highly interdisciplinary and politically nuanced view of education
are a number of issues that now connect learning to social change,
the operations of democratic public life, and the formation of critically
engaged individual and social agents. At the center of this series will be
questions regarding what young people, adults, academics, artists, and
cultural workers need to know to be able to live in an inclusive and just
democracy and what it would mean to develop institutional capacities to
reintroduce politics and public commitment into everyday life. Books in
this series aim to play a vital role in rethinking the entire project of the
related themes of politics, democratic struggles, and critical education
within the global public sphere.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14964
jan jagodzinski
Editor
The Precarious Future
of Education
Risk and Uncertainty in Ecology, Curriculum,
Learning, and Technology
Editor
jan jagodzinski
Department of Secondary Education
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Education, Psychoanalysis, and Social Transformation
ISBN 978-1-137-48690-5 ISBN 978-1-137-48691-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48691-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956385
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
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The registered company address is 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
This book is dedicated to Terry Carson, Professor Emeritus. Terry served as
Chair of the Department of Secondary Education at the University
of Alberta from 1997 to 2004. I thank him for the many years
of friendship and mentoring.
A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would fi rst like to thank all those participants who took part in the lec-
ture series A fter the Future of Education that took place in the winter
semester of 2014 at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. Many
of them appear in this collection. I would especially like to thank my dear-
est colleagues Terry Carson and Hans Smits for their many years of devo-
tion to the curriculum fi eld, and their attempt to improve the quality of
teaching in schools by placing their energies into teacher education. The
depth of their experience is refl ected in their essay. Both are now emeriti.
I wish to especially thank Terry Carson for the many years, over thirty,
that we have been department members, and to acknowledge all the sup-
port he has given me over those many years. Without Terry’s continued
encouragement, I would not have sustained my own devotion to teach-
ing. He showed me how one can be gracious throughout the toughest
moments in life. This book is dedicated to him as a poor cousin to a proper
Festschrift .
I would like to thank my colleague Jackie Seidel whose devotion to
ecology and education is equally passionate. Her work in this area is well
known and respected. Equally so my admiration goes out to Alexandra
Fidyk. She is one of the best-known Jungian scholars working in the fi eld
of education, and I am proud that she is a colleague in my department.
Her essay exhibits her depth in this fi eld. It is a treat to be able to include
her in this collection. I would like to thank Jim Parsons, my oldest and
most enduring colleague. Jim’s modesty and positive orientation toward
life always inspired me. An author of too many books to ever list in a
biography, Jim places his efforts into schools, improving their climates and
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
networking with teachers and administrators to make each a better place.
He has an extraordinary talent to do this. Always supportive of his grads,
it has been a pleasure to call him a colleague in a department that made
its reputation on curriculum thought and theorizing. I thank him for his
interesting meditative chapter on what is happening in schools today as
infl uenced by the changes in technology.
Certainly close to my heart are the issues Greg Thomas raises in this
collection as well. Greg has many years of experiences in teaching science
education. He has placed his pragmatic whit and knowledge to vivify what
the issues are in that fi eld today. Greg, Australian born, travels regularly
to Southeast Asia where his expertise is on call. Once more, I am proud
to have him as a colleague, to call him a “mate” in the same department
as he shows leadership in this area. I wish to thank Derek Britton, whose
insights into school and Internet life are well established, as are his politi-
cal savvy and acumen that are quickly recognized through his writings.
I am grateful for his contribution as he brings a Lacanian perspective to
the table, which uncovers the fantasy life of learning and teaching, a dis-
course that remains under-represented in the educational literature. Kent
den Heyer enables me to further boast of the capacities of our department.
Kent has always raised the critical issues concerning social science educa-
tion. The political stance of Alain Badiou is often brought up, and his
concern for Indigenous rights and treaties comes across in his classroom
teaching. Thank you Kent for your contribution on the vicissitudes of
learning and the uses and abuses of curriculum reform for educators.
Many thanks also go to Kedrick James, whom I had the good fortune
to meet at the University of British Columbia. Kedrick is an accomplished
poet, dramatist and musician, who brings all of his talent to questions
of communication and technology. In a shrewd and insightful chapter,
Kedrick raises issues that are not likely to be embraced by educational tech-
nocrats. His exposé provides the needed questions of media and commu-
nication literacy today, and I thank him for that. As I equally thank Cathy
Adams for a revealing chapter on the use of technologies in our schools
today. Once more I can take pride that Cathy’s expertise in technology
and phenomenology is well-recognized in those circles where there is no
immediate glib acceptance of the latest technologies for schools. Cathy
is remarkably astute when it comes to the dangers of the blind accep-
tance of technology. She is well versed in computer programming and in
assessing the need for programming in today’s schools. Many thanks to
my friend Joe Norris, who now teaches at Brock University in the drama
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
department; Joe was a former colleague in the department and his legacy
continues to linger as he has been credited for developing a new research
strategy, which he names, Duoethnography. It is a pleasure to have Joe
part of this collection as it rounds out the arts—drama in this case. Lastly,
and never the least, is Jessie Beier, whose artistic talents and ability to push
the edges of thought is so welcoming. Her contribution to this collection
stands out in its address to our species precarity as to where we stand on
this Earth. Thank you Jessie.
I thank all of you for making this collection a historical document for
acknowledging the spirit of the Department of Secondary Education as
all of you have a connection to it in one way or another. I hope that your
contribution to the discussion “after the future of education” continues
with the distribution of this book. It belongs to us all as I am merely a
messenger. I thank you for your energies and support to make it happen.
C
ONTENTS
1 The Precarious Future of Education: The Speculative
Fictions of Education 1
jan jagodzinski
Part I C urricular Diffi culties: Ecology, Globalization
and Pedagogy 27
2 After the Future in Teacher Education 29
Terrance Carson and Hans Smits
3 Curriculum Lessons from Ecopsychology 53
Jackie Seidel
4 The Infl uence of Cultural and Familial Complexes
in the Classroom: A Post-J ungian View 71
Alexandra Fidyk
5 Silent Schools? On the Re-emergence of Oral
Language and Culture in Education 109
Jim Parsons
xi