Amanda Fulford

Conversations: risk, passion and frank speaking in education

This article considers conversations in and about education. To focus the discussion, it uses the scenario of a conversation between a trainee teacher and her mentor reflecting together on a lesson that the trainee has just taught. I begin by outlining the notion of reflective practice as popularised by Donald Schön, and show how, in the scenario, the reflective practice conversation leads to talk characterised by recourse to particular dominant discourses within education, and how this in turn can lead to a certain voicelessness. I then consider what the possibilities for the reflective practice conversation might be, looking first at the Greek notion of parrhēsia and how this has been discussed in the work of Michel Foucault in contrast to other forms of talk such as rhetoric or chattering. I argue that, whilst the parrhēsiastic conversation may allow for the exploration of the relationships (between the mentor and the trainee, each participant and their words and a relationship of care for the self), such possibilities are fraught with difficulty. I then move to consider how such relationships might be developed through recognising the expressive aspects of language emphasised in Stanley Cavells notion of passionate utterance. I first trace the development of Cavells thought through John Austins contrast in language between the constative and the performative. I then illustrate the idea of passionate utterance from the films Cavell describes as the ‘Hollywood comedies of remarriage’, and argue that the passionate utterance opens up opportunities for the kind of conversation in education that is itself educative.

Satisfaction, settlement and exposition: conversation and the university tutorial

In this paper, I consider the tutorial conversation in Higher Education. To focus the discussion I use the scenario of a tutorial conversation between a lecturer and a student. I begin by suggesting that the increasing emphasis placed on student satisfaction in certain Higher Education Institutions tends to focus the tutorial conversation towards a form of settlement that I then consider in light of Thoreaus Walden. To explore what other conversation might be possible, I turn to the philosophical writing of Martin Buber. I discuss his ‘life of dialogue’ in relation to the distinction he draws between I and Thou and between I and It and to how Nancy Vansieleghem and Jan Masschelein analyse this in relation to the 2002 film, Le Fils. With reference to the film adaptation of Alan Bennetts The History Boys, I suggest a different starting point for the tutorial conversation. I conclude that the tutorial discussion, seen as an invitation to speak, and as a form of exposition and dialogue, is the possibility of the opening up of a new dimension of thinking and acting. This is the invitation to a conversation in education that is itself truly educative.

Cavell, Literacy and What It Means to Read.

This paper explores three current notions of literacy, which underpin the theorisation and practice of teaching and learning for both children and adults in England. In so doing, it raises certain problems inherent in these approaches to literacy and literacy education and shows how Stanley Cavells notions of reading, and especially his reading of Thoreaus Walden, help to construct a notion not of literacy, but of being literate. The paper takes four themes central to Cavells work in his The senses of Walden: awakening; estrangement and familiarity; conviction; and the obligation to read, and argues that these ideas offer an approach to language, and an understanding of reading in particular, that is different from current iterations of literacy. Such ideas, though alien to current – mainly empirical – work within literacy studies, have a resonance for literacy research and education today.

Higher Education, Collaboration and a New Economics

In this article I take as my starting point the economist, Jeremy Rifkins, claims about the rise of what he calls the ‘collaborative commons’. For Rifkin, this is nothing less than the emergence of a new economic paradigm where traditional consumers exploit the possibilities of technology, and position themselves as ‘pro-sumers’. This emphasises their role in production rather than consumption alone, and shows how they aim to bypass a range of capitalist markets, from publishing to the music industry. In asking how education is situated in relation to the collaborative commons, I consider the growth in technology-driven, cost-negative services as a response to the current market in higher education. This raises the issue of what we mean by ‘collaboration’ in the university, and how this might be different from, for example, cooperation or teamwork. In seeking to provide a richer conception of collaboration in higher education, I look to Martin Bubers concept of the relational act and the life of dialogue, and to some of the seminal work of Ronald Barnett on the philosophy and economics of higher education. The article suggests that these concepts afford a new perspective on collaboration that amount to a new economics for education. Such economics require a radical shift in how we perceive the role of responsibility, reciprocity and the educative possibilities of conversation.

Refusal and disowning knowledge: re-thinking disengagement in higher education

Abstract This paper addresses both ‘student engagement’ in contemporary universities, and student ‘disengagement’ – where the latter is often seen as a failure of performance, or absence of will. In a bold move, the paper asks whether students should be engaged in their university education, and whether there is value in forms of disengagement. It finds an original way in which student disengagement can be understood by drawing on the writings of Stanley Cavell – on the philosophical appeal to what we say, our search for criteria, and on ideas of acknowledgement and avoidance in his work on Shakespearian tragedy. It shows what is at stake in our attunement with, and dissent from, criteria, and how such dissent can be educative. The paper considers the film ‘Stella Dallas’, in which Stella’s aversion to, her disengagement from, her culture’s criteria, is not a passive withdrawal, but rather the finding of voice, her education as a grownup. The paper concludes that disengagement, understood as aversion, dissent and refusal of voice, is not to be seen always as a lack of action or of care, but as the opposite: the active voicing of what we will, or will not, consent to in our education.

The Hermit and the Poet.

The notions of literacy and citizenship have become technologised through the demands for measurable learning outcomes and the reduction of these aspects of education to sets of skills and competences. Technologisation is understood here as the systematisation of an art, rather than as intending to understand technology itself in negative terms or to comment on the way technology is used in teaching and learning for literacy and citizenship. Technologisation is approached here in terms of the understanding of literacy and citizenship as things (qualities, sets of skills) that one has. Being literate and being a citizen are brought together here in order to consider the implications of their technologisation for academic writing in the university. Drawing on the phenomenology of Gabriel Marcel the understanding of literacy and citizenship in terms of having is problematized, as is the distinction between having and being. This opens the way for a richer understanding of being literate and being a citizen explored through the figures of the Hermit and the Poet in Thoreau’s Walden. The question of what we write in the name of in the university is considered in the light of this and of a particular notion of the public.

Higher Education, Collaboration and a New Economics: Higher Education, Collaboration and a New Economics

In this article I take as my starting point the economist, Jeremy Rifkins, claims about the rise of what he calls the ‘collaborative commons’. For Rifkin, this is nothing less than the emergence of a new economic paradigm where traditional consumers exploit the possibilities of technology, and position themselves as ‘pro-sumers’. This emphasises their role in production rather than consumption alone, and shows how they aim to bypass a range of capitalist markets, from publishing to the music industry. In asking how education is situated in relation to the collaborative commons, I consider the growth in technology-driven, cost-negative services as a response to the current market in higher education. This raises the issue of what we mean by ‘collaboration’ in the university, and how this might be different from, for example, cooperation or teamwork. In seeking to provide a richer conception of collaboration in higher education, I look to Martin Bubers concept of the relational act and the life of dialogue, and to some of the seminal work of Ronald Barnett on the philosophy and economics of higher education. The article suggests that these concepts afford a new perspective on collaboration that amount to a new economics for education. Such economics require a radical shift in how we perceive the role of responsibility, reciprocity and the educative possibilities of conversation.

Education, Collaboration and a New Economics

In this article I take as my starting point the economist, Jeremy Rifkins, claims about the rise of what he calls the ‘collaborative commons’. For Rifkin, this is nothing less than the emergence of a new economic paradigm where traditional consumers exploit the possibilities of technology, and position themselves as ‘pro-sumers’. This emphasises their role in production rather than consumption alone, and shows how they aim to bypass a range of capitalist markets, from publishing to the music industry. In asking how education is situated in relation to the collaborative commons, I consider the growth in technology-driven, cost-negative services as a response to the current market in higher education. This raises the issue of what we mean by ‘collaboration’ in the university, and how this might be different from, for example, cooperation or teamwork. In seeking to provide a richer conception of collaboration in higher education, I look to Martin Bubers concept of the relational act and the life of dialogue, and to some of the seminal work of Ronald Barnett on the philosophy and economics of higher education. The article suggests that these concepts afford a new perspective on collaboration that amount to a new economics for education. Such economics require a radical shift in how we perceive the role of responsibility, reciprocity and the educative possibilities of conversation.