2: Thinking as an ethical commitment?

This week I am continuing my exploration of the theory practice divide by thinking with the journalist and philosopher, Hannah Arendt, and the interpretations of her work by Judith Butler (2009), who is generally known for her work in queer theory. You will notice that throughout the posts on my blog- rather than choosing a single lens to think about theory and practice- I will think about this single concept with different poststructural and other theorists and perspectives from week to week. Last week I likened the socially constructed division between theory and practice to the constructed division between mind and body. Through her analysis of Arendt’s work, Butler asks if “thinking implies a commitment to cohabitation” (video 2, min 9). This week I want to sit with this question and think about how thinking or theorizing “commits us in advance to the preservation of plurality” (video 4, min 2:30). How does thinking relate to the act of education? How does thought predispose us to the possibilities of being with children?

Here Judith Butler (2009) theorizes Hannah Arendt’s work on the Adolf Eichmann trial. For the purpose of this conversation I have focussed on videos 1, 2 and 4.

            I think in these questions and in this extreme example of the Eichmann trial – we can hear some of the implications of a prescribed curriculum and prescribed subjectivity (Osberg & Biesta, 2008, pp. 12). Arendt introduces the idea of an emergent subject when she speaks about “who a subject is, rather than [...] what a subject is.” She talks about how the subject is formed through continual “beginnings” that take place “when we act- [when] we ‘show ourselves’ in the human world.” As each beginning rubs up against the beginnings of others, it becomes a completely new and previously unknown beginning. It is in this way- through interactions with others- that a unique, but social, ‘who’ is formed. So how does this act of becoming with others relate to thinking and theorizing?

As children continually emerge and disrupt our ideas about what a child is- presenting a new ‘who’, a fluidly emerging ‘who’, Butler (2009) helps us to question if we are receptive to this call of the other. With Arendt, she helps us to see how thinking puts us in dialogue with ourselves and how this dialogue “is related to the plurality of the human- that differentiated many that belongs to the domain of sociality. So to maintain a dialogue with oneself, must in some way imply maintaining a relation to that plurality and thinking must require both and even implicate us in both” (video 5, min. 2). In this way, it would seem that diversity and the voice of the unknowable other might be allowed a space in our classrooms by engaging in thought that can disrupt the norms that have been established there.

Arendt and Butler can help us see how thinking in our classrooms is not just related to the acts we perform through our curriculum- but also the acts of acknowledging the human subjectivities in our classrooms. They help us question which subjects are allowed to emerge. How do we, as educators, allow our emerging ‘beginnings’ to be shaped by the beginnings of children? How do we think about plurality? How do we disrupt the norms and laws of education to make space for the voices of children and families?

Biesta, G. & Osberg, D. (2008). The emergent curriculum: navigating a complex course between unguided learning and planned enculturation. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40 (3), 313-328.

Butler, J. (2009). Hannah Arendt, ethics, and responsibility [online video]. Switzerland: European Graduate School. Retrieved from  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOwdsO6KkkI&feature=channel