Becoming Pedagogue: Bergson and the Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics of Early Childhood Education and Care 2022045835, 2022045836, 9781138207561, 9781138207585, 9781315461779

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BECOMING PEDAGOGUE

Returning to the origins of education, Becoming Pedagogue explores its role in today’s society by reuniting philosophy with pedagogy. It investigates the aesthetics, ethics and politics of childhood, education and what a teacher really does, enabling educators to define and perform their profession as per its historical and intellectual roots. Reflecting on the practice, science and knowledge tradition of pedagogy as well as abstract and formalist discourse at all levels, Olsson’s work evokes real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. Through a close reading of French philosopher Henri Bergson’s major works, historical and contemporary pedagogical resources as well as the pedagogy developed in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, Italy, it develops a critical-cum-creative methodology that both analyses the present educational situation as well as creates new pedagogical alternatives. Using brand new perspectives as well as practical examples of what teachers do, Becoming Pedagogue will provide students, educators and researchers tools for critiquing simplified ideas of what a teacher is as well as giving them inspiration to experiment with alternative ways of teaching. Liselott Mariett Olsson is Associate Professor in Pedagogy in the Department of Childhood, Education and Society at Malmö University, Sweden. Her research revolves around early childhood education and care as well as c­ ontinental philosophy and pedagogy; her works focus on the aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions of education.

Contesting Early Childhood Series Editors: Liselott Mariett Olsson and Michel Vandenbroeck

This ground-breaking series questions the current dominant discourses surrounding early childhood, and offers instead alternative narratives of an area that is now made up of a multitude of perspectives and debates. The series examines the possibilities and risks arising from the accelerated development of early childhood services and policies, and illustrates how it has become increasingly steeped in regulation and control. Insightfully, this collection of books shows how early childhood services can in fact contribute to ethical and democratic practices. The authors explore new ideas taken from alternative working practices in both the western and developing world, and from other academic disciplines such as developmental psychology. Current theories and best practice are placed in relation to the major processes of political, social, economic, cultural and technological change occurring in the world today. Rethinking Environmental Education in a Climate Change Era Weather Learning in Early Childhood Tonya Rooney and Mindy Blaise Slow Knowledge and the Unhurried Child Time for Slow Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education Alison Clark The Decommodification of Early Childhood Education and Care Resisting Neoliberalism Michel Vandenbroeck, Joanne Lehrer and Linda Mitchell Becoming Pedagogue Bergson and the Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics of Early Childhood Education and Care Liselott Mariett Olsson For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Contesting-Early-Childhood/book-series/SE0623

BECOMING PEDAGOGUE Bergson and the Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics of Early Childhood Education and Care

Liselott Mariett Olsson

Designed cover image: Socrates with a disciple and Diotima Franc Kavčič/Caucig (before 1810), oil, canvas, 121,5 × 173,5 NG S 3333, National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana Photographer: Janko Dermastja © Narodna galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia. First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Liselott Mariett Olsson The right of Liselott Mariett Olsson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Olsson, Liselott Mariett, 1970- author. Title: Becoming pedagogue : Bergson and the aesthetics, ethics and politics in early childhood education and care / Liselott Mariett Olsson. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Series: Contesting early childhood | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022045835 (print) | LCCN 2022045836 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138207561 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138207585 (paperback) | ISBN 9781315461779 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Early childhood education--Philosophy. | Reggio Emilia approach (Early childhood education) | Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941. Classification: LCC LB1139.23 .O449 2023 (print) | LCC LB1139.23 (ebook) | DDC 372.21--dc23/eng/20221116 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022045835 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022045836 ISBN: 9781138207561 (hbk) ISBN: 9781138207585 (pbk) ISBN: 9781315461779 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779 Typeset in Bembo by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To Bella and Nona

Taylor & Francis Taylor & Francis Group http://taylorandfrancis.com

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations and Credits x Acknowledgementsxiv Prologuexv Introduction: The Scent of Pedagogical Problems1 A Broken Relation Between Logos and World in Education: A Pedagogical-Aesthetical Problem  6 A Broken Relation Between Individual and Society in Education: A Pedagogical-Ethical Problem  9 A Broken Relation Between Past, Present and Future in Education: A Pedagogical-Political Problem  12 A Broken Relation Between Education and Pedagogy: A Pedagogical-Educational Problem  14 Purpose and Character of the Book  18 Disposition of the Book  20 PART I

The Global Error29 1 The Odour of a False Problem An Immoderate Taste for False Problems 31 Henri Bergson and How to Recognize a False Problem 33 Abstract Formalism in Education: Quantitative-Qualitative Confusion 40

31

viii  Contents

Logos and World in Abstract Formalist Education: Aesthetic Illusion 43 Individual and Society in Abstract Formalist Education: Ethical Fabulation 46 Past, Present and Future in Abstract Formalist Education: Political Retrotopication 49 2 Problems with Freedom There Are Always Two Sides to Every Story and to Everything 58 A Method with Two Sides and Three Rules 61 Creating Problems: Two Ways of (Knowing) Reality 63 Converging Differences: Becoming Larger than Neuro-Life 77 Thinking in Duration: Freedom “the Clearest and Simplest Thing in the World” 100 Freedom Comes with Problems and Problems Come with Freedom 113

58

PART II

The Great Oblivion

123

3 Science and Philosophy Revisited, Revivified and Reunited Science and Philosophy in the Scientific Study of Education 125 Knowledge traditions in the Scientific Study of Education 126 The Knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the Scientific Study of Education: The Case of Sweden 135 Differences and Convergences in Pedagogy and Early Childhood Pedagogy: The Case of Sweden 144 Summarizing Discussion and an Old-new/New-old Direction 151 Resonances Between Bergson’s Philosophy and Pedagogy/ Pedagogik 152 Change of Direction: Introduction to the Grammar and Semantics of Pedagogy 156

125

4 The Syntax and Grammar and Semantics and Sense of Pedagogy The Words of Pedagogy: Paidagogikè Téchne, Ars Paedagogica, Paidagogos, Paedagogus, Paedagoga, Pais, Agogos, Paideia, Cultura, Educere, Evolvere, Sperimentare, Verificare, Ricerca, Organico, Olistico, Integrale, Ri-conoscere, Qualificare, Confronto, Nodo, Contaminazione, Articolare, Matrice 165

165

Contents ix

The Domains of Pedagogy: Practice, Science and Knowledge tradition 174 The Phenomena of Pedagogy: Upbringing, Teaching and Education 177 The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Aesthetics 181 The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Ethics 192 The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Politics 197 The Logic of Pedagogy: Contextuality, Complexity and Relationality 203 The Methodology of Pedagogy: Analytic, Synthetic and Intuitive 208 The Knowledge-object of Pedagogy: Scholé and Gentleness  212 PART III

The Creative Contribution223 5 Becoming Pedagogue: Intuition & Minor Methods Becoming Pedagogue: Intuition 225 Becoming Pedagogue: Minor Methods 227 Minor Language: The Magic of Language 240 6 Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care: Minor Gestures Minor Gestures 249 An Aesthetical Gesture of Contempla(c)tion: Initial Observations and Preparations in the Project The Book 251 An Ethical Gesture of Creating Enabling Constraints: Response to Children in the Project The Book 260 A Political Gesture of Engaging in Composite Rhythm: Adapting to Children’s Rhythm in the Project The Book 265

225

249

Epilogue268 Index270

ILLUSTRATIONS AND CREDITS

Figures Figure 4.1 Diotima, the pedagogue of Socrates, with him and his disciple. Credit: Photographer: Janko Dermastja © Narodna galerija, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Figure 4.2 Douris (490-485 B.C.). ANTIKENSAMMLUNG, STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN -PREUSSISCHER KULTURBESITZF 2285. Credit: Photographer: Johannes Laurentius. Figure 4.4 Froebel’s building blocks. Johannes Ronge (1858) A practical guide to the English kindergarten (children’s garden): for the use of mothers, nursery governesses, and infant teachers: being an exposition of Froebel’s system of infant training: accompanied by a great variety of instructive and amusing games, and industrial and gymnastic exercises, also numerous songs, set to music and arranged to the exercises. Credit: London: Hobson & Wikimedia Commons Figure 4.5 Composition With Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, Piet Mondrian, 1920. Credit:  Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. Wikimedia Commons. Figure 4.6 Falling Water House Frank Lloyd Wright, 1939. Credit: Falling Water (Kaufmann Residence). Wikimedia Commons. Figure 4.7 Untitled, Paul Klee, 1914. The Berggruen Klee Collection 1984. Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons. Figure 4.8 Child’s hand and tree. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell.

Illustrations and Credits xi

Figure 4.9 Child’s finger in shell. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 4.10 Child’s hand and stones. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 4.11 Child’s hand and a piece of glass. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 5.1 Albert’s name. Credit: Photographer: Riina Lundell. Figure 5.2 Albert’s name with text. Credit: Photographer: Riina Lundell. Figure 5.3 Confetti-room. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 5.4 Random offerings. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 5.5 Ordered offerings. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.1 Lines. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.2 Heian Calligraphy. Credit: Tokyo National Museum. Wikimedia Commons. Figure 6.3 Table with black ink. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.4 Rhythmic signs I. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.5 Rhythmic signs II. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.6 Rhythmic signs III. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.7 Other friends join in rhythmic signs. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.8 Feeling-book. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.9 Paperscape. Heian period 12th Century. Credit: Originally inherited in Kunoji Temple, now owned privately. Wikimedia Commons. Figure 6.10 Children’s books exposed. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.11 Paper-room. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.12 Black ink and paintbrushes. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.13 The story and the signs unfold I. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell.

xii  Illustrations and Credits

Figure 6.14 The story and the signs unfold II. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.15 The story and the signs unfold III. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.16 The story and the signs unfold IV. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.17 Written words picked up in the Paper-room I. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell. Figure 6.18 Written words picked up in the Paper-room II. Credit: Photographer: Ebba Theorell.

Table Table 3.1 Knowledge traditions in the study of education. Credit: Furlong, J. and Whitty, G. (2017) Knowledge Traditions in the Study of Education, in G. Whitty and J. Furlong Knowledge and the Study of Education: an international exploration. Series: Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Oxford: Symposium Books.

Illustrations and Credits xiii

Reproduction of Previously Published Material Permission has been given by Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/, to re-use material (Figures 4.8–4.11, 5.4–5.5, 6.10–6.11, 6.16–6.18, and conversation between child and teacher in Chapter 6) from Liselott Mariett Olsson, Gunilla Dahlberg & Ebba Theorell (2016) Displacing identity – placing aesthetics: early childhood literacy in a globalized world, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37:5, 717-738, DOI: 10.1080/01596306.2015.1075711

Translated Quotes Permission has been given to translate and use quotes from the following books and publishers: Bergson, H. (2017/1904–05) L’Évolution du problème de la liberté. Presses Universitaires de France. Houssaye, J. (2002) Premiers pédagogues: de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. ESF Éditeur. Houssaye, J. (2014) Le triangle pédagogique: Les différentes facettes de la pédagogie. ESF Éditeur. Kroksmark, T. (1991) Pedagogikens vägar till dess första professur. Gothenburg University. Meirieu, P (2007) Pédagogie: Le devoir de résister. ESF Éditeur. Säfström, C.-A. (1994) Makt och mening – Förutsättningar för en innehållsfokuserad pedagogisk forskning. Uppsala University. Worms, F. (2009) La philosophie en France au xxe siècle: Moments. Presses Universitaires de France. Worms, F. (2013) La vocabulaire de Bergson. Ellipses Édition. Worms, F. (2013) Bergson ou les deux sens de la vie. Presses Universitaires de France. Zanfi, C. (2020) La pensée et le mouvant: Introduction (Première et deuxième parties). Desclée de Brouwer.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My warmest and most heartfelt thanks go to all that have contributed to and supported this book’s becoming along the way: colleges and friends in Pedagogy/ Pedagogik, not the least the “gang of five”, Elisabet Langmann, Lovisa Bergdahl, Marie-Louise Stjerna and Carl Anders Säfström, with whom I am truly enjoying exploring the vertiginous sense of pedagogy and life in general, and that with a good portion of humour and laughter!; all my new colleges and friends in the Department of Childhood, Education and Society at Malmö University who have received me with such gentleness and joy, it is a treat to be and work with you!; all colleges and friends at the University College of Östfold for all great and creative work, not the least with another “gang of five”, Ninni Sandvik, Nina Johannesen, Ann-Sofie Larsen, Mette Roe Nyhus, and Bente Ulla, who generously have included me!; Monica Nilsson and Robert Lecusay for all joyful and skilful work with complex matters, we too form a “gang” of colleges and friends, and a brilliant one at that!; all children and educators involved in former and current research-projects as well as those involved in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia: you truly are the best in and of the world!; my publisher Alison Foyle at Routledge for gentleness, encouraging support, patience and skill!; my co-editor Michel Vandenbroeck at the same house for all terrific work and for being so great to work with!; former editors of Contesting Early Childhood, Peter Moss and Gunilla Dahlberg, for initiating and trusting me and Michel with this great series, and Gunilla, as always, for support and for the joy of being and thinking together!; Marie-Anne Colliander for support and for being such a clever and inspiring person to be with!; Ebba Theorell, you magnificent brilliant scholar and friend, I always smile when I think of you, and thank you for all your wonderful work present also in this book!; Monica Sand, my spiritual sister and a constant source of joyful and collegial inspiration!; a special and warm thank you to Caterina Zanfi who generously read and responded to the “Bergsonian” parts of the manuscript and thank you too to all involved in La Société des Amis de Bergson for sharing your work with such generosity and skill! Finally, my most profound thanks go to my beloved parents Gunvi and Jan Olsson – you always support what I do in the very best of ways and I am so grateful for this and for all marvellous moments we have together!

PROLOGUE

Is there anything more daring, anything newer than to announce to physicists that the inert will be explained by the living, to biologists that life will only be understood through thought, to philosophers that generalities are not philosophical, to teachers that the whole must be taught before its elements, to students that one must begin by perfection, to man, more than ever given over to egoism and hatred, that the natural driving power of man is generosity? (Bergson 1934/2007:216) Bergson, H. (1934/2007) The creative mind: An introduction to metaphysics. New York: Dover Publications.

INTRODUCTION The Scent of Pedagogical Problems

We are wrong to believe that the true and the false can only be brought to bear on solutions, that they only begin with solutions. This prejudice is social (for society, and the language that transmits order-words [mots d’ordre], ‘set up’ [donnent] ready-made problems, as if they were drawn out of ‘the city’s administrative filing cabinets,’ and force us to ‘solve’ them, leaving us only a thin margin of freedom). Moreover, this prejudice goes back to childhood, to the classroom: It is the schoolteacher who ‘poses’ the problems; the pupil’s task is to discover the solutions. In this way we are kept in a kind of slavery. True freedom lies in a power to decide, to constitute problems themselves. (Deleuze 2006:15)

Pedagogical problems come with a certain scent. Even though social prejudices want to make believe that problems come predefined and carry with them given solutions to be forced upon the child, pupil and student, pedagogical problems rather come with a scent of freedom. That is why they are so unpopular today. Today the “city’s administrative filing cabinets” are no longer locally and centrally stored, they have spread out and invaded all aspects of nearly all human practices, including educational practices on all levels. Imprecise claims of “evidence-based” educational practice and research with universal solutions to the so-called crisis in education are at the core of this “standards and accountability movement” that concerns finding and reporting the right way to pose in front of children, pupils and students given problems, demanding them to uncover equally given solutions (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013; Taubman 2009). Just as teachers on all levels – from preschool to university – are asked to solve readymade problems formulated somewhere else and by someone else. Neither educand nor educator has the necessary moral space or freedom to constitute problems that they consider interesting, important and necessary (Greene 1988/2018). In short, DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-1

2  Introduction

a bureaucratic administration has taken over one of the most important issues in the educational experience and event: the power and freedom of children, pupils, students and teachers to engage in the process of formulating questions and constituting problems. This lack of freedom is neither new nor unfamiliar. Researchers have identified how education during the last decades radically has changed face. For instance, in what is conventionally known as the Western world, education has deviated from its origins in the Greek notion of scholé – a concrete public place and time free from labour in the city-state (polis) and in the house-hold (oikos) where new generations were given tools to study and renew culture, values and knowledge (Masschelein & Simons 2013).1 In sharp contrast to this historical foundation of education, today, education is marked by economic logic and reduced to simple job-training. The (labour) market is in school and school is on the (labour) market and conditions necessary for the new generations’ study and renewal of the world – free time and a public place – are neglected. Today, education has become an abstract place where children’s, students’ and teachers’ individual performances are assessed and made measurable in an economic logic destined to produce high returns and countable results for which children, students and teachers are held accountable. Here, educational experiences and events are reduced to nothing but quantitative “learning and teaching by numbers” (Biesta 2010; Taubman 2009). Paradoxically, this is pronounced under the pretext of promoting quality in educational practice and research at the same as inequalities in and outside education are only increasing (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013; Moss 2014; Santos 2010). Talk of “quality” in education in this situation seems not only erroneous but also somewhat indecent. Scholé was from the very beginning concretely manifested as the lieu par excellence for preserving society. It concerned a generational societal function, consolidating in face of determination, inspiring in its hope of the permanence of things, or, at the least in something ( Jaeger 1939/1945; Masschelein & Simons 2013). Maybe, today, it is this desire for preservation and permanence that is resurrecting. If so, it is as if our desires are projected upon education that consequently is put under the pressure of saving us all from uncertainty. How hard can it be? Pose the question – find the answer. Identify the problem – find the solution. Can you not, at least, please, just find an effective method that will guarantee some assurance, some sort of definition, some permanence, at least something that endures? It seems we find ourselves in a time and place where, again, we are reminded of Life’s uncertainty. A reminder that, now as before, immediately leads to doubting whether anything is real at all. Modern man, when he lost the certainty of a world to come, was thrown back upon himself and not upon this world; far from believing that the world might be potentially immortal, he was not even sure that it was real. (Arendt 1958/1998:320, emphasis added)

Introduction 3

Today, just as when German-American political theorist Hanna Arendt (1906–1975) wrote her above-cited piece The Human Condition (1958/1998), there are many signs of this doubted real. In our current time, just as in the time of Arendt, it is often stated that we live in an era of rapid transformation and unforeseeable futures in practically every societal practice. With such assumptions also seems to come a desire to tame life, and especially educational life, to regain perhaps and at last something that endures. This is expressed not the least in a widespread goal-orientation in education where very detailed and still very abstract and general goals are set for both educands and educators (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013). Perhaps unwittingly, yet within its own logic, the economic vocabulary that surrounds education today has staged an inflation beyond its own imagination in terms of goals and outcomes. This is especially visible in how goals for very young students sometimes seem formulated at the same level and complexity as goals in research-education. But it is also visible in the many instruments for measuring results that have entered educational practices. A local community of early childhood centres counts as much as five different and time-demanding digital tools for evaluation of results and quality-assurance, often bought in from enthusiastic companies that sell such tools to the community for expensive money. Headteachers in the community have calculated that one of these tools, if not bothering too much about thinking deeply, or for that matter thinking at all, takes 72 hours to fill in, while teachers were given 2 hours to fulfil the task (Overview document of external tools 2021). Moreover, the tools are all extremely abstract and general and do not concern the everyday experiences and events that these teachers live together with children in the early childhood centres (Personal communication 2022). There seems to be a profound desire from local policymakers to through such tools not only live up to global demands of accountability, but also, and by necessity, to tame the educational practices in accordance with the tools themselves; abstract and formal representations of educational experiences and events become more real than the events and experiences themselves. When this desire to tame educational life through goal and resultorientation is connected to a widespread and taken-for-granted, yet exhausted, economic logic and to claims of efficiency, big data, bureaucratic procedures and an idea of education as simple job training, educational realities may come forward as unbearably complex, messy and in need of being ordered and controlled. Obviously, when attempting to frame a life of any kind that which does not fit into the chosen frame comes forward as an irritating anomaly better to be quickly disposed of. Real educational experiences and events become considered more a disturbance than something that is welcomed and enjoyed. Another sign of this current doubt in real educational experiences and events is the almost obsessive fascination for the invisible and interior, particularly ­testified by frequent translations of new findings within the neurosciences into many societal contexts and practices (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013). Especially, and as one recent book in this series shows, into educational contexts and ­practices (Vandenbroeck et al. 2017). Certainly, the neurosciences constitute a

4  Introduction

rich and complex field that has made tremendous progress over a relatively short period of time and that continues to develop, not the least in terms of scientific methods and techniques. Nevertheless, what needs to be further investigated is how questions, tools and findings used and produced within this field may, or may not, be appropriate and useful in other disciplines and practices (Fias 2017). Here, there is a need for a range of critical questions. Can we, for instance, be sure that the image of a brain and its activity accurately translates and/or explains the human mind, behaviour and experience in educational practices? Development of new techniques of imaging in the field of neuroscience has led to attempts to visualize not only the structure of the material brain, but also the mind’s functioning, allegedly enabling us “to see the neural correlates of the activities of the mind itself in real time” (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:13). Such a belief claims to trace and translate that which goes on in lived experiences and events to that which goes on in the physical brain. Causes for our different and complex ways of existing in the world are now to be found in the interior matter of the brain, making it “impossible to doubt that mind is what brain does” (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:13, emphasis added). If mind is what brain does, this may, especially in the contemporary educational situation described above, lead to a desire to correct and control such alleged correlations. As stated by British sociologists Nicolas Rose and Joëlle Abi-Rached: The belief that we can see the mind in the living brain, can observe the passions and its desires that seemingly underlie normal and pathological beliefs, emotions, and behaviours, has been a key element in the claim that neuroscience can provide useful information about the government of human beings, the conduct of their conduct in the everyday world. (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:13) Unqualified translation of neuroscientific findings into educational contexts and practices may, then, become yet another attempt to govern and control children, pupils, students and teachers in the name of yet another reductive approach to freedom: “Once more, now in neural form, we are obliged to take responsibility for our biology, to manage our brains in order to bear the responsibilities of freedom” (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:23). When neuroscientific findings latch on to advanced liberalist ideas of a self-governing subject, freedom is all up to the individual brain, albeit that it now is defined also as a “social brain” (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:22). As we state in the preface to one recent book in this series (Olsson & Vandenbroeck 2017), when this is paired with the abdication of societal responsibility for education, market-force interference and bureaucratic procedures, it may also enhance the current doubt in real educational experiences and events. Yet another sign of contemporary doubt in real educational experiences and events is expressed in current debates on fake news, alternative facts and misinformation in a “post-truth” era that, as stated by American Professor in

Introduction 5

Education Michael Peters, is neither new nor neutral in the contemporary educational situation, and that demands new forms of criticality: In the era of post-truth it is not enough to revisit notions or theories of truth, accounts of ‘evidence,’ and forms of epistemic justification as a guide to truth, but we need to understand the broader epistemological and Orwellian implications of post-truth politics, science and education. More importantly, we need an operational strategy to combat ‘government by lying’ and a global society prepared to accept cognitive dissonance and the subordination of truth to Twittered emotional appeals and irrational personal beliefs. (Peters 2017:565) Certainly, the human and social sciences have through bringing in various and necessary forms of “constructivism” contributed in important ways to questioning all too rigid claims of real, often based on simplified notions of knowledge and always with disastrous consequences in terms of exclusion of that and those considered “not normal”. Questioning such constructions and divisions has been essential both for critique and creation in human and social practices and theories, not the least in education. However, how should we navigate this today when, as described by Peters above, we are governed by lies and emotionally personalized Twitter accounts? The question becomes even more urgent as, at the same time and as shown by Swedish Professor in Pedagogy Carl Anders Säfström (2019), the growing tendencies of populism, alt-right movements and conservative forces feed upon the dismissal of educational and pedagogical theories and practices. Are not the sciences, whether human, social, natural or technical, responsible for confronting and responding to that which we hold for (un)real at a certain time and place – including the constructions and consequences of such claims? If they are, this task becomes imminently difficult in education as it, as seen above, currently is reduced to what Norwegian Professor in Pedagogy Lars Løvlie has coined as abstract formalism (Løvlie 2007). This abstract formalism proceeds through a self-proclaimed right to define education solely through abstract and formal generalizations where given epistemological questions and answers claim to once and for all define the causes, contents, methods and results of knowledge. This is serious as addressing the (un)real pertains to posing ontological problems rather than pursuing only given epistemological questions and responses. Indeed, and as Peters (2017) states above, it is not enough to revisit “epistemic justifications” and we do seem to need a broader understanding of our current educational situation. Especially since, and as stated by Australian philosopher Elizabeth Grosz, ontology has for a long time been reduced to epistemology: “For over a century ontology has become increasingly diminished as a concern of philosophical, political, and cultural reflection; it has been submitted to the domination of epistemology, theories of what knowledge is and does” (Grosz 2017:2–3). A possible manoeuvre here, is, perhaps a bit paradoxically as

6  Introduction

education appears self-evidently grounded in a given epistemology, to approach the current educational situation through critically questioning this epistemological foundation. At least as a first move and to be able to also revisit epistemology in a different way. Considering the force of abstract formalism in the contemporary educational situation we might, though, need to go further. Deep goes the taken-for-granted ontology of education, often topographically placed in only one corner of the world – the Western world. If taking this seriously we might have to make yet another effort and pose also metaphysical questions of our and the world’s existence, of space and time and their relation and, not the least, of freedom. There is potential in returning to, but, taking the above into account, also re-formulating ontological and metaphysical problems as these “have ethical and political – as well as aesthetic and cultural – resonances that (…) provide limits and obstacles, an outside, to epistemological frameworks” (Grosz 2017:3). Aesthetics, ethics and politics have, in fact, always been part of the ideas and practices of education. Throughout history and within an aesthetic dimension of education problems have been posed concerning the relation between the human mind and its capacity for language, Logos, and the World, material things and the sensuous, bodily experiences we have of these. Similarly, and within an ethical dimension of education problems concerning the status and modus of the Individual and Society, their relation as well as their respective responsibilities of and in education have been thoroughly explored. In the same way and within a political dimension of education problems concerning how to place education in time and how to navigate the Past, the Present and the Future of and in education have been posed in a number of important ways.2 Moreover, when educational problems have been pedagogically posed within these dimensions, they have been carefully considered in an attempt to navigate the apparent dualistic order (Meirieu 2007). Logos – World, Individual – Society as well as Past – Present – Future, even though they come in couples and a triplet, are in education and pedagogy difficult to treat as completely oppositional or separated. Pedagogically they are rather to be seen as amalgamated and continuously transforming relations of a seemingly dualist order that need to be identified as such, but they also need to be carefully navigated as interdependent and even interpenetrating features. However, today, education no longer carries the scent of pedagogical problems and aesthetical, ethical and political relations are no longer “held together”. The dimensions are neglected, the relations are broken, and they all run the risk of being reduced to a file in the city’s administrative cabinet.

A Broken Relation Between Logos and World in Education: A Pedagogical-Aesthetical Problem Maybe the most concrete sign of the contemporary doubt in that which is real is evidenced in the current decline of concrete and material places for education. Even though all educational practice demands a place for making sense

Introduction 7

of educational experiences and events, today, material places in education are neglected. In Sweden, media and research report a proper crisis and a need for substantial research and investment in the physical-material environment. The buildings where preschools and schools are installed are deteriorating and preschools and schools are displaced in barracks supposed to be temporary locations that tend to become permanent, or in buildings never meant to harbour any kind of educational activity, and no state agency currently takes responsibility for the material environment in education (de Laval 2018; Ekström 2021; Krupinska 2018; SVT 2013). A visit to Ireland in October 2018 comes with the astonishing news that student teachers are called back to university from their placements in preschools and schools due to security concerns as the buildings suffer from “significant structural issues” and must be closed down (O’Brien & Roberts 2018). Moreover, it is difficult to find any beauty in either barracks or structurally suffering buildings; there is an apparent lack of attention to the beautiful in educational premises. In addition, current geo-political transformations and movements seem to provoke not more flexibility, but rather only hardening divisions along geographical lines as well as identity-lines, resulting in material and mental borders being built. As shown by new materialist and post-humanist researchers, the material territory of education indeed seems to be in a troubled state and this needs to be both critically and creatively addressed, in both practice and theory, and on all levels of education and research (Murris 2016; St. Pierre, Jackson & Mazzei 2016; Lenz-Taguchi & St. Pierre 2017; MacLure 2013a, 2013b; MacRae, Hackett, Holmes & Jones 2018). Situated within a larger movement of post-humanist efforts such research shows how a longstanding heritage of anthropocentrism, human exceptionalism and dualist epistemologies, that almost always favours the ideal before the material, has led to the neglect of material aspects of educational experiences and events. The etymological sense of some geographical terms underlines the situation: material in Latin is derived from mother – where we all originate from, and territory derives from terra – land, earth, soil, nourishment. Here to be understood as the shared material buildings, grounds, placement, tools and as that which nourishes societal and educational practices, but, due to the current situation, perhaps also as derived from terrere – to frighten, terrorize and exclude (Rose 1999) – as that which drains vitality from these practices. The so much talked about “educational crisis”, might, then, be as much of spatial as intellectual in its character. Regarding the intellectual side of things there certainly seems to be a crisis in education as well. However, not in the sense of the general and grand narrative on declining results and lack of effectiveness, but rather in the sense that current attempts to capture and control children’s students’ and teachers’ answers and solutions to predefined questions and problems carry a very weak relation to that which is real in education. As seen above, it is through abstract and formalized procedures that children, students, pupils and teachers are judged in accordance with expected results and the number of controlling devices and tests is steadily growing, even in early childhood education and care (ECEC).3

8  Introduction

Yet another example here is OECD’s (2020) initiative International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing Study (IELS) that attempts to assess 5-year-old children’s skills in four different areas (emerging literacy, emerging numeracy, self-regulation, empathy and trust). This initiative has been met by severe critique and is considered an ill-suited scientific paradigm, lacking in self-awareness, self-critique and appropriate methods, including neglect of questions of power, equality and diversity (Diaz-Diaz, Semenec & Moss 2019; Moss et al. 2016; Moss & Urban 2017, 2020). This initiative to assess learning in the early years is just one example of not only how abstract formalist and ill-suited scientific methods and questions are applied in education, but also of how the concept of “learning” is currently treated. Despite its wide-stretched use in nearly all of societies’ practices (Mills & Kraftl 2016; Rose 1999), there are very few definitions of what “learning” means or, for that matter, what its’ relation to teaching consists in (Biesta 2017; Säfström, Månsson & Osman 2015). It is paradoxical. Even though sociologists and cultural geographers, since at least two decades, have testified to a proper “educationalization” of society where “lifelong learning” is linked to political, economic, social and cultural processes in different local, national and transnational contexts (Mills & Kraftl 2016; Rose 1999), learning still seems to mean everything and nothing. Add to this digitalization and new media where learning is thought to occur in faster communication and wider distribution (education anytime and anywhere) and it becomes apparent that the wide-spread and floating concept of learning is neither problematized nor theorized enough (Biesta 2017; Edwards & Usher 2008; Edwards, Tracy & Jordan 2011). The paradox deepens as the frequent use of the term learning seems to be reduced to logo-centric procedures without connection to the material place that harbours and expresses societies’ “common goods” in culture, knowledge and values (Løvlie 2007). This abstraction of learning leaves it vulnerable and exposed to all sorts of abuse, as evidenced not the least through the earlier mentioned “neuromania” (Legrenzi & Umilta 2011) in education, but also through a steadily growing number of “programs” that inform notions of learning in contemporary educational theories and practices (Moss et al. 2016). Even though it may be time to “rediscover teaching” (Biesta 2017), this still presents some challenges, especially in ECEC which carries a long tradition of integrating play and creative activities in curricula. For instance, in the newly revised Swedish ECEC curriculum (Skolverket 2018), a more formalized concept of teaching is enhanced and researchers already point towards potential neglect of the important integrated tradition (Nilsson, Lecusay & Alnervik 2018; Nilsson, Lecusay, Alnervik & Ferholt 2018). If a crisis there is in education, we should be calling it by its right name – a spatial-intellectual crisis. The questions evoked above concerning the abyss created between the human mind and its capacity for language, Logos, and the World with its material things and the sensuous, bodily experiences we have of these, are in this book framed as evoking an aesthetical dimension of education. The neglect and separation of Logos and World described above is, then, a neglect of this aesthetical dimension

Introduction 9

of education, and it is as a pedagogical-aesthetical problem that this relation will be followed up throughout the book.

A Broken Relation Between Individual and Society in Education: A Pedagogical-Ethical Problem The above-evoked preference for interiority and invisibility is not new in education. As earlier stated, unqualified translations of findings within developmental psychology have been the forerunner to yet other imprecise translations that now take place with the neurosciences into educational practices (Vandenbroeck et al. 2017). This heritage paired with abstract formalism, an economic logic, and advanced liberal governing render education into a purely private and individual affair. Children, pupils, students and teachers are today conceived as private actors, yet still publicly responsible for their (in)capacity to mimic and display already given and universal answers and solutions to corresponding equally given and universal questions and problems. The consequences of this complete turnaround concerning to whom the responsibility for education is attributed must not be underestimated. Education in its origins was a societal task; it was society’s responsibility to offer conditions (free time and public space) for children, pupils and students to study and renew the world. Today each individual child, pupil and student scent and sense, already when approaching the buildings (if they are still standing), that it is going to be all up to her/himself. Italian pedagogue Loris Malaguzzi stated that education begins with the image of the child. Malaguzzi’s image of the child was that of a “competent child”, a child that beyond paradigmatic age-divisions was seen as a complete and full-worthy citizen contributing here and now to culture, knowledge and values in society (Cagliari et al. 2016). Now, today the image of the child is often dressed in economic terms, and even the very youngest children are thought of as “human capital” that when invested in, preferably as early as possible (“early intervention”), will repay their debts with some interest, at least somewhere in a long-distanced future (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013; Moss 2014). Despite theoretical displacements made by different constructivist perspectives where the image of the child has been opened up and freed from its psychological imprisonment, and despite the fact that more focus has been directed towards the contextual, complex and relational aspects of educational practices, today, there is still often a severe and restricted image of the child at stake (Bloch, Swadener & Cannella 2014; Murris 2016; Taylor 2013). Real children, the ones we encounter every day within and outside educational settings, are reduced to an abstract and formal identity, equated with a potential economic benefit in a vague and imagined future. It is not only children that suffer from being attributed an abstract and formal identity but also teachers are exposed to this kind of abstraction and formalization. Fervent defenders of evidence-based research and practice, not the least when it comes to teacher education, demand teachers to apply superficial and

10  Introduction

simplified methods that “work”. Literature used in teacher education that focus “workable” theories, methods and techniques (often designed in almost scarily accordance with courses and outcomes in teacher education curricula) is steadily growing and it becomes more and more difficult to obtain funding for any research that does not respond, already from the outset, to “what works” in education and in the teacher profession (Allan 2014). As these superficial strategies never actually do work, the conclusion is that the teacher must be the one to blame and consequently, there has been massive media and public critic directed towards the teacher profession where the teacher is forced into the ambivalent position of being both the destroyer and the saviour of not only education but of entire nations prosperity (Taubman 2009). Already at the beginning of this shift to an economic and individualized, but still socially useful, image of the teacher, attentive scholars and especially feminist ones, such as American Professor in Philosophy of Education Maxine Greene (1988/2018), noticed what was going on: The dominant watch-words remain ‘effectiveness,’ ‘proficiency,’ ‘efficiency,’ and an ill-defined, one-dimensional ‘excellence’. Reforms or no, teachers are asked to teach to the end of ‘economic competitiveness’ for the nation. (Greene 1988/2018:12) Attentive as she was, she saw and sensed that teachers would not stand for this pressure: We do not know how many educators see present demands and prescriptions as obstacles to their own development, or how many find it difficult to breathe. There may be thousands who, in the absence of support systems, have elected to be silent. Thousands of others (sometimes without explanation) are leaving the schools. (Greene 1988/2018:14) Today we know. There were and are many that found and find it difficult to breathe. Only in Sweden, a relatively small country, the estimated lack of preschool-teachers for the years 2021–2030 is 43 000 (Utbildningsdepartementet 2020). Governments are now putting pressure on universities to make places for more student-teachers, but the question is not only who is going to educate all these preschool-­teachers, but perhaps more importantly if the reasons for this lack of teachers must not be sought elsewhere. For instance, one reason for the reluctance to becoming and being a teacher may be that within abstract formalism the teaching profession is reduced to a technical instrumentality. Motives such as the desire to be together with children in their study and renewal of the world, to together with children explore and contribute to culture, knowledge and values in society and to enjoy teaching in its full complexity, are at odds with what is demanded of teachers today:

Introduction 11

to instrumentally apply the most efficient methods in coherence with the right input-output relation that will guarantee correct and competitive results. Today, governments only begin to understand the extent and seriousness of the situation as scholars now recognize and point towards “an epidemic teacher burnout” due to a “deprivation of teachers’ and teacher-candidates’ moral meaning and purpose” (Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018:255). In fact, when abstract formalism is allowed to define the individual in education there is no longer any real person to refer to at all, left is only an empty and given identity-form that fits none (Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018:263). Moreover, alternative images of the human subject in education such as, for instance, “the competent child”, but also teachers as “professional marvellers” (Cagliari et al. 2016; Vecchi 2010) seem to run the risk of being hi-jacked and equated within an advanced liberalist idea of an independent, individual and self-reflecting subject (Rose 1999). Amongst these notions, particularly the one of “self-reflection” seems to have become a mantra in education on all levels. In higher education and within teacher education programs, student teachers are very often obliged to reflect upon themselves, as are even the very youngest children in the educational system (Elfström 2014; Fendler 2001; Olsson 2009; Rose 1999). Now, of course, reflection in education may be very beneficial. It springs from a long pedagogical tradition of progressive attempts to deal with the asymmetric pedagogical relationship between the child and the teacher and to promote a professional teacher that continuously evolves in her/his practice (Dewey 1933; Schön 1983). However, such reflection seems no longer assigned as one important feature of becoming and being a teacher but seems to be the only thing we encourage in ourselves and in the new generation. Something which may be further enhanced by the fact that the public sphere to which we do have access today, social media, seems to offer countless opportunities to present and reflect upon oneself. From a pedagogical perspective all this scent of a misunderstanding, and several questions become urgent to pose: What about directing attention to that which lies outside myself? What about studying and transforming not only myself but also the World in which I am part? What about the classical figure of the pedagogical triangle (Houssaye 2014; Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018) where the child/pupil/student is just one of the components that should never be completely disconnected from the other two; the teacher and the content at stake? Today, these questions seem neglected and children, pupils, students and teachers seem directed nowhere else but towards themselves, with the result that the profound social and relational aspects of education may get lost. In ECEC this development is particularly serious as it omits not only societal responsibility for education but also hinders pedagogical relations and care of and for the new generation that is so important in the early years (Dahlberg & Moss 2005). Considering this and the above neglect of social responsibility as well as the empty figure of the human subject in education, it seems important to address the conditions created, or not, for education on a societal level. To the spatial-intellectual crisis in education, there needs to be added a social one.

12  Introduction

The questions evoked above concerning to whom responsibilities of education are attributed and how to conceive of the Individual and Society as well as of relations and care in education are in this book framed as evoking an indispensable ethical dimension of education. The neglect of both Individual and Society in education described above is, then, a neglect of this ethical dimension in education and it is as a pedagogical-ethical problem, that it will be followed up throughout the book.

A Broken Relation Between Past, Present and Future in Education: A Pedagogical-Political Problem The “educational crisis” has hitherto been defined as being of a spatial-intellectual and social character. The so much talked about crisis in education has been described as spatial-intellectual due to neglect of an aesthetic dimension in education, and it has been defined as a social crisis due to neglect of an ethical dimension in education. Mark well that none of these features refer to the standard-image of the alleged crisis in education concerning the lack of efficiency and results. The “crisis” defined so far concerns the conditions for education, that here are stated to be reduced to an abstract formality with very weak connections to anything or anyone that could be called real in education. Pursuing the idea of “crisis” in this precise way, there is one more component to be added to this alternative definition of the educational crisis, namely that of a temporal crisis. Such crisis is due to a neglect of a political dimension in education. This is visible in contemporary educational politics and policies that carry a historical obliviousness of important origins and definitions of education, and therefore reduce the necessary free time for study and renewal of the world. But it is also visible in how education seems relentlessly doomed to be caught up in a void between abstract, formal and utopic visions of a far-distanced future and/or equally abstract and formalized nostalgic yearnings for a long-lost Paradise (Säfström & Saeverot 2017). Concerning the latter, Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (1925–2017) gave us with his last book Retrotopia (2017) a legacy to take care of and make use of in our current situation. What Bauman draws up in this book is a diagnosis of our contemporary society as a place petrified no longer only by the horrors of the past but also and maybe foremost by the unfathomable cruelty of a futile future. Utopia and its projection of hope into the future is now accompanied and often subsumed by Retrotopia – a veneration of the past through nostalgia. We no longer have trust in the future but put in permanent positions of fear and risk we make the past look like the long-lost Paradise. Just as stated above: when loosing “the certainty of a world to come” and when being directed only towards oneself, one may also doubt whether the world is real at all. It might be this fear that underlies and produces nostalgia for the past. This is visible, not the least, in how the earlier mentioned populist political demagogues and conservative alt-right forces and organizations feed upon nostalgic yearnings of an often severely revised and reconstructed past that serves their purposes of today. Both utopic and retrotopic

Introduction 13

notions of time omit educational experiences of lived and free time, and maybe, today, especially those of a time to come. If not trusting in a world to come, if not actively working for a world to come, if not allowing ourselves any kind of future-orientation (without necessarily making this into an abstract utopia, see for instance Moss (2014) we not only get stuck in the (badly composed) past, but, perhaps more seriously, education loses one of its most important features – to harbour and pay attention to that which in the educational experience and event is coming about. Pedagogy and education, especially with the very youngest children, carry a specific relation to time and an inevitable normative tendency (Friesen 2017; Säfström & Saeverot 2017). As a teacher, you must be anchored in your own and others’ past experiences at the same time as you must encounter the child here and now, but also with all the potentials of what that child, at the same time, is becoming. This implies that the teacher has the delicate task of harbouring the past, the present and the future simultaneously. To educate teachers, therefore, concerns (amongst many other things) educating them within this temporal aspect of the political dimension of education where student teachers must find strategies to avoid getting mislead by either utopia or retrotopia. In short, teachers need strategies that make it possible for them to harbour a past, work in the present, and yet with active attention to and trust in an unknown future to come. This is made so much more difficult in our contemporary situation not only due to utopic and retrotopic visions and notions of time but also due to how futurity and normativity is subsumed by a retrospective gaze, provoked and reinforced by yet another mantra in education on all levels, that of critique.4 Let’s be clear here. This is not the kind of criticality that Peters (2017) above states missing. Nor is it the kind of criticality that springs from a long tradition within education and pedagogy beginning, in the Western parts of the world, already with the philosophers in Antique Greece and manifested most clearly in modern times in education through traditions of critical thinking and critical pedagogy as well as the development of pragmatist, neo-pragmatist, postmodern, postcolonial, poststructuralist, critical race studies and feminist perspectives and studies that, in different (and sometimes conflicting) ways question social inequality, injustice, epistemic formations and assumptions, power, domination, historic formations of rationalities and regimes of truth in education (AlhadeffJones 2010; Biesta & Stams 2001; Burbules & Berk 1999; Lather 1998). Within these traditions, education has developed its political dimension and also the necessary criticality towards the notion of critique itself and its role and function in education. But the way critique is used in today’s educational context, particularly in relation to the frequency with which the word “critical” occurs within learning goals and outcomes (“children should be encouraged to critically engage in…”; “the student is after completed course able to critically discuss…”) seems somewhat to have lost its roots in this political dimension and also to have been reduced in its multi-faceted and complex development throughout the history of education (Alhadeff-Jones 2010). In fact, the contemporary obsession with

14  Introduction

critique in education seems to have become not only substituted by, but also part of the earlier mentioned “narrow conceptions of standards and state-mandated instrumental and utilitarian pedagogies” (Peters 2017:565). Such an instrumental notion of critique has effectively spread and has found its place on all levels of the educational system. Today “critique may also become a self-affirming overarching end in itself ” (Raffsnö 2015:1) and, just as with the above-mentioned mantra of “self-reflection”, it seems to be what education is all about. In relation to the here presented temporal aspects of a political dimension of education, this is serious as it forces children, pupils and students (as well as teachers and researchers) to be retrospectively critical even before they have had the time to be for something. This has led scholars to evoke the need for new forms of criticality in education (Staunes 2017). This certainly seems necessary as the utilitarian notion of critique and the retrospective gaze it provokes potentially presents a threat both to the long-standing, multifaceted and rich notion of critique in education and to the teacher-profession, including, not the least, education of student-teachers. If teachers and student-teachers are solely directed towards the void promoted by utopic and retrotopic notions of time, further reinforced by a utilitarian critically retrospective stance, teachers and student-teachers are literally robbed of one of the most fundamental tasks of education: to navigate between what has been, what is and what becomes. The spatial-intellectual-social “crisis” in education must, then, also be understood as a temporal crisis. The questions evoked above concerning how to place education in time as well as how to navigate Past, Present and Future in education are in this book framed as being of a political character and as evoking a political dimension of education. The neglect of time described above is, then, a neglect of this political dimension in education and it is as a pedagogical-political problem that will be followed up throughout the book.

A Broken Relation Between Education and Pedagogy: A Pedagogical-Educational Problem In the midst of this mess stands pedagogy as a forgotten and dismissed treasure, capable of giving both intellectual and practical consistency to the educational gesture of offering new generations time and space for study and renewal of culture, knowledge and values in society. To claim this today is a difficult task as pedagogy does not marry easily with the abstract formalism that defines contemporary education. Rather, the divorce is somewhat pronounced already at the outset. Today, not only pedagogical practice but also the scientific discipline of pedagogy is often deemed and dismissed as useless and of no value to what is stated as the educational problems of our present time and the long knowledge tradition of pedagogy seems to be completely forgotten. Contemporary critique of education does not stop at the “educational crisis”, it also encompasses a severe critique of the academic discipline of pedagogy. For instance, in Sweden and over the last decades, a large number of articles (almost always written by scholars

Introduction 15

from other disciplines) criticizing the scientific discipline of pedagogy have been published in daily newspapers. Here it is often claimed that pedagogy is a “weak” and/or “confused” discipline, not capable of addressing or answering to the educational problems of today. Some even go so far as to claim that pedagogy should be done away with as a scientific discipline altogether, preferably to be replaced by neuro scientific research and methods “that work” in education. The public debate seems to allow for anyone – even without scholarly competence in education and pedagogy – to express their thoughts on what is wrong and what should be done with education and with pedagogy (Edling & Liljestrand 2020; Säfström 2019; Säfström & Saeverot 2017). One could even (and especially as a pedagogue) sense that for some pedagogy and pedagogical problems do not come with a certain “scent” but rather with a “bad smell”. This is what it has come to. A tradition devoted in practice and thought to a generous and still demanding generational gesture of delicately navigating the simultaneous preservation and renewal of society has, despite its long history and utterly complex and important task, become superfluous and deemed to submission in front of overwhelming demands of simplification. How is it possible? It might be due to the scent of freedom of pedagogical problems – a scent that for those looking for assurance, formalism and permanence doesn’t do it. It might be because pedagogy and pedagogical problems not only scent of freedom but also of real – a scent that for those desiring abstraction, interiority and invisibility rather smells of something too close to both the visceral and the visionary. It might be because pedagogy and pedagogical problems scent of a different logic of contextuality, complexity and relationality within which educational experiences and events are considered in continuous becoming and transformation – a logic that does not fit the bill in a society where education is demanded to function through de-contextualization, simplified notions of cause and effect and individualist and static definitions of both subjects and objects. For pedagogy these demands make her despair. Neglect of context (cultural, geographical, historical, material, social and political) is for her insupportable, simplified cause-effect driven notions of educational questions seem to her unbearable, and when individuals (human and more-than-human) are nailed down within un-relational and permanent definitions, she cries. So, pedagogy, despite her current bad reputation may have something of importance to say and do in the contemporary educational situation. At the least, it must be admitted that she has a particularly interesting and rich history. At the beginning, in the Western parts of the world and in Ancient Greece, pedagogy was intimately tied to philosophy ( Jaeger 1939/1945, 1943, 1944; Houssaye 2002; Säfström 2019). The early philosophers were simultaneously pedagogues, and this origin is of great importance because it points towards a specific relation between theory and practice that in contrast to abstract formalism deals precisely with what could be scented and sensed as real. In fact, the particularity with pedagogy is that she is in one sense impossible to disconnect from philosophical thinking – philosophy is her birthmother and questions of education cannot be

16  Introduction

posed without philosophical ideas. But in another sense (not the least the sense of mother as material evoked above) she constantly needs to attend to practice – ­education cannot be performed nor thought without referring to concrete action. In short, pedagogues “engage in an educational reality, between ideas and actions, within the articulation of both, without any possible reduction of one to the other”5 (Houssaye 2002:18, my translation, emphasis added). However, and despite the amalgamation of practice and theory that marks pedagogy, it is still of importance to make a distinction concerning how pedagogy is activated within three domains: (1) as practice, (2) as science and (3) as knowledge tradition. As a pedagogical practice, we would need to date pedagogy to as early as when humans started to bring up new generations. When it comes to pedagogy as a scientific discipline, it develops much later than pedagogy as a knowledge tradition, which we have already dated above, in the Western parts of the world, to at least early Antique Greece (ibid). In this context, the development of pedagogy as a scientific discipline begins by the end of the 18th century, often exemplified by the installation of Ernst Christian Trapp as Professor of Education at the University of Halle in 1779 (Biesta, Allan & Edwards 2011). In Sweden, pedagogy was officially pronounced as a scientific discipline, distinct from philosophy, at the beginning of the 20th century, where the first Professor in Pedagogy Bertil Hammer, was installed at Uppsala University 1910 (Englund 2017) whereas, for instance, England and Scotland had their first professors in education 1873 and 1876, respectively (Biesta, Allan & Edwards 2011). Throughout the 20th century, the scientific study of education in the Western world has taken on different features in different contexts. There are two major trajectories that have developed, expressed in the Anglo-American and the Continental traditions (Biesta 2011). Within the former tradition and in the English-speaking parts of the world pedagogy often means nothing more or less than pedagogical practice. It often indicates the “method-parts” of educational processes in practice. Educational research is here conceived as an inter- and multidisciplinary field based on four “fundamental” disciplines: philosophy, psychology, sociology and history, where neither education nor pedagogy is seen as an academic discipline in its own right. Within the latter tradition and in the German-speaking world the opposite is the case. Pädagogik is here considered an academic discipline that has developed out of its’ intimate relationship with philosophy but that also has its own knowledge tradition, capable of giving both practical and intellectual consistency to educational processes in practice (Biesta 2011; Biesta, Allan & Edwards 2011; Houssaye 2002, 2005, 2007).6 Why are these distinctions important? Well, in part because “while the psychology of education will ask psychological questions about education, the history of education historical ones, the philosophy of education philosophical ones and the sociology of education sociological ones, the question that remains is who will ask educational questions of education” (Biesta 2011:190). Pedagogy as described above does harbour both practical and theoretical educational questions of education, and it, therefore, seems of importance to take pedagogy into

Introduction 17

account in the contemporary educational situation. This does not imply, however, that education and pedagogy must be confined only to something that could be called educational or pedagogical theories and methods (even though it is possible to identify such trajectories throughout the history of education, see for instance Houssaye 2002). It is, though, important to acknowledge that “while other disciplines can study educational processes and practices from their own angles, they do not have the devices to capture the reality of education as an educational reality” (Biesta 2011:190). As seen above, the particularity with pedagogy is that she through her position right on the border between action and thought tends towards precisely the reality of educational experiences and events. All this does not imply any doing away with other disciplines engaged in education nor with potential collaboration between disciplines or with questions that (initially) may seem far away from education. In fact, education – especially with and for the youngest children – often demands various transdisciplinary efforts and the posing of complex questions. Not the least because such efforts correspond to how children themselves often approach the world (Olsson 2013). Without any attempts of exclusion then, in this book, it is pedagogy as practice, science and knowledge tradition that will be used to formulate, ask and answer educational questions in our current time. But what does a non-exclusionary attempt really mean? There is in the above description of education and pedagogy a limitation and neglect that concerns a topographical placement within a troublesome Eurocentric glorification of Ancient Greece, imagined together with the Bible as the centre and centrality of the world (Moten 2018). In times of an “educational crisis” that sometimes and at some places rightfully is equated with an “European crisis” it seems of utmost importance to also take into account that the European and Greek “heritage” might carry with it not only important accumulated knowledge on education, but also the foundation of a long-standing problem of Eurocentrism speaking “not just of the centrality of European man, but of man as Europe, Europe as the Bible and the Greeks” (Moten 2018:4). Now the problem intensifies and magnifies. Not only will the current task of writing a book “worthy of existence” necessarily include a questioning of the Westernized origins of education and pedagogy, but more specifically, it will demand that all sources used be scrutinized as to whether they contribute to going beyond a (theoretico-European) tendency to, in times of a stated crisis, “return to the Greeks as originarily European” (Moten 2018:23). There is here a need for theories capable of twisting and tweaking such an epistemologically violent perception-ontology. There is also the desire and urge to find new ways of conceptualizing pedagogy as practice, science and knowledge tradition in a more radically non-exclusive attempt. Here, the earlier mentioned aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions of education become of highest importance as they as earlier stated provide an outside to epistemological frameworks and what counts as knowledge. An outside that if allowed to re-enter and make peace with the inside of education may be capable of resisting both abstract formalism and

18  Introduction

Eurocentrism in education. An outside as well that may be capable of addressing and articulating real, becoming and free aspects of educational experience and events through taking stock of, but also prolonging and pushing further, accumulated knowledge in education and pedagogy.

Purpose and Character of the Book The purpose of this book is in a spiritual sense to evoke the scent of real, becoming and free educational experiences and events. In a matter-of-fact sense the purpose is to explore concrete real, becoming and free educational acts and gestures. As will be seen, just like the different sides of pedagogical problems, these two dimensions – spirit and matter – must in education be held together. This is attempted through evoking aesthetical, ethical, and political dimensions in education. It is these dimensions that will be further explored in their potential to bring back some real, some becoming and some freedom to educational experiences and events. There is one assumption that drives this book forward: the teacher needs to continuously become pedagogue. Teachers on all levels – from preschool to university – are under such pressure. They have been robbed of the intellectual and practical foundations of their profession at the same time as they are dismissed as incapable, insufficient and responsible not only for past failure but also for future success within and outside education. Teachers have been let down and betrayed by academic and public discourse as well as by local and global governing performed by all too enthusiast and/or opportunistic politicians and policymakers. The accumulated knowledge that exists within pedagogy as practice, science and knowledge tradition harbours treasures for teachers. It is their knowledge and it should be available to them. However, this knowledge is not easily accessible and it should be approached with a very careful attitude not only due to contemporary oblivion and the above-evoked Eurocentric glorification but also because it is a knowledge that demands innovative thoughts and acts. Pedagogical knowledge is of a particularly experimental sort where what is knowledgably practiced and thought must be acknowledged, but also continuously challenged and transformed in a knowledgeable mustering of the unknown. Pedagogues, therefore, can never settle and install themselves comfortably in given epistemological and ontological registers of educational experiences and events, but must constantly navigate educational problems within aesthetical, ethical, and political dimensions without ever getting stuck in what is presented as “infernal alternatives” of a dualist order so common in our contemporary times (Debaise & Stengers 2016). It is in this book suggested that it is precisely due to this innovative character of pedagogy that we as teachers continuously must become pedagogue. A few words on the character of this book. This is a book written within pedagogy as practice, science, and knowledge tradition. Even though there is frequent philosophical reasoning and referencing, it is still a book that locates itself within these three domains of pedagogy. Philosophy is in this book treated as the birthmother of pedagogy and as an indispensable resource for thinking

Introduction 19

education. However, due to the book’s location and to the fact that even though philosophy may be considered the birthmother of all scientific disciplines “now that they are grown up and well established”, this relation between philosophy and science may need some revision (Deleuze 2004:23). Therefore, this book attempts to be more precise in its pedagogical position. This location of the book also implies that there are less defining and positioning problems within philosophical traditions, but more connecting specific philosophical problems with pedagogical ones, where the important thing is how philosophical and pedagogical problems may contribute to and enrichen each other.7 Similarly, although historical references are made, this is not a book written within the history of pedagogy but rather with the past of pedagogy. It does not attempt to give a full historical account of the pedagogue nor of the history of pedagogy. Neither does it want a nostalgic return to a past pedagogical paradise for as seen in the introduction that kind of nostalgia is part of the current problem of abstract formalism in education. There is however nostalgia at stake, but as will be seen throughout the book this is nostalgia of a different kind. It is here question of a nostalgia for the future (Malaguzzi as cited in Hoyuelos 2013:132). More than being an oxymoron this is rather a creative paradox – it is about a nostalgia for new futures. The past is here treated in its co-existence with the present, thereby being not only accessible and exposable to necessary critique, but the past is also available in its virtual potential to incite change and transformation. Although, and importantly, not necessarily in a deterministic causal way as: “The future is that over which the past and present has no control” (Grosz 2004:184). The past and present educational situation must therefore – even though the latter is accounted for in its most depressing state in this introduction and the first chapter (please bear with me) – be seen neither as fatal nor final, but as a condition for anything new to occur at all.8 As for the aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions evoked in this book, it is important to make some distinctions. Even though aesthetical questions are theorized and exemplified, it is not a book that appeals to any simplified and romantic notion of “creativity”. Aesthetics is here rather unromantically (although also evoking the beautiful and the sensuous) treated in relation to the current abyss created between Logos and World and to how aesthetics as a problem in this precise meaning has been dealt with in education and in pedagogy. Likewise, although ethical and political questions are confronted, they are done so from the point of view of relations between the Individual and Society as well as between Past, Present and Future in education and pedagogy, and not as they are treated within, for instance, political science. This, even though there are ample opportunities in the theoretical resources used in this book to develop both ethical and political theory (see, for instance, Grosz 2004; Lefebvre & White 2012; Vernon 2020). But that is a project for those more skilled within such a scientific disciplinarity. Here, ethics and politics are presented in line with how they have been practiced and researched in education and pedagogy as well as in line with how they may be reconceptualized in such settings through the practical and theoretical resources used in this book.

20  Introduction

It is, in short, a book in pedagogy as practice, as science and as knowledge tradition. A book that tries to revoke and make use of all the above-mentioned resources to both theoretically and practically activate some real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. As the book is written within the series Contesting Early Childhood it is also a book that situates education and pedagogy in that specific domain: education and care for and with the very youngest. It is not always the case that ECEC is treated as fully part of the scientific discipline of pedagogy. More common is to divide the discipline into various sub-fields where age serves as a paradigmatic divider and where the early years tend to be separated (and quite often under-estimated) from the rest of the discipline. But one of the main points with this book is that it is with the very youngest children that educational questions appear more clearly in their full complexity and therefore demand the utmost practical and theoretical precision – something that could contribute not only to ECEC, but to pedagogy and education in general. In this way, the book attempts to stay close to the character of the series Contesting Early Childhood where earlier editors Gunilla Dahlberg and Peter Moss have revitalized not only the study of ECEC but also education in general through posing new questions and bringing in new theoretical sources. In this sense, the series has become a site for work within the above-mentioned tradition of pedagogy and has therefore been able to contribute both to the early years and to education and pedagogy in general. The present book is, therefore, deeply indebted to Gunilla Dahlberg and Peter Moss’ work, and the title and purpose of the book should also be seen as a way of paying homage to that work and more particularly to two now classical pieces Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care – Languages of evaluation (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013) and Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education (Dahlberg & Moss 2005). The present book is an attempt to follow the trajectories therein drawn up and to continue the contesting conversation on the fundamental dimensions of education and pedagogy: aesthetics, ethics and politics.

Disposition of the Book In a letter to Arnaud Villani 9 dated the 29 December 1986, French Philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) states that there are three things or functions that make a book “worthy of existence” and that might guide one’s writing: (1) one thinks that a global error has been committed concerning the subject-matter (polemic function) (2) one thinks that something essential has been forgotten on the subject-matter (inventive function) and (3) one thinks oneself capable of creating a new concept (creative function) (Deleuze 2015:86–87). An attempt is in the present book made to put these functions to use. Accordingly, here, the global error consists in having reduced education on all levels to abstract formalism. The essential thing that has been forgotten is the practice, science and knowledge tradition of pedagogy, which can give both intellectual and practical consistency to education. The creative concept consists of a suggestion to explore and make use of aesthetical,

Introduction 21

ethical and political dimensions, all the way through and into very concrete pedagogical gestures in the practice of ECEC, and to imbue the notion of the teacher with the character of continuously becoming pedagogue. In accordance with this, the book is disposed as follows: Part I The Global Error exposes current abstract formalism as a global error in education. Chapter 1 “The Odour of a False Problem” introduces and makes use of French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) oeuvre to critically consider abstract formalism as a false problem in education as it (1) confuses quantity and quality through measuring qualitative aspects of education, children, pupils, students and teachers quantitatively, (2) produces illusions of Logos and World through reducing perception to knowledge in an aesthetical dimension of education, and produces illusory fabulations of the Individual and Society through disconnected self-reflection in an ethical dimension of education and (3) omits duration within a political dimension of education through “intelligent” and “linguistic” retrospective critique that arrest educational subjects and objects and forces them as well as time itself, Past, Present and Future, to obey a spatial logic. In Chapter 2 “Problems with Freedom” the critical story just told is rendered more complex and complete. Through an account of some of the most important aspects of Bergson’s major works, including his method of intuition, the chapter draws up a critical-creative methodology as well as some alternative ways of conceptualizing real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. The first part of the book paves the way for connecting these alternatives to existing resources in education and for considering the knowledge tradition of pedagogy as a more complex and comprehensive science for education. Part II The Great Oblivion evokes the forgotten and essential knowledge tradition of pedagogy in education. Chapter 3 “Science and Philosophy Revisited, Revivified and Reunited” consists of some initial suggestions of how science and philosophy may be revisited, revivified and reunited in the scientific study of education. The chapter presents an overview of current and historical knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education, and these are further exemplified in the historical and socio-political development of Pedagogy/Pedagogik in Sweden from the beginning of the 20th century up until today. Chapter 4 “The Syntax and Grammar & Semantics and Sense of Pedagogy” designs a syntax and grammar that identify the words, the domains, the phenomena, the dimensions, the logic and the methodology of pedagogy. These syntaxial and grammatical components are exemplified with semantics and sense consisting of more personal, embodied and heartfelt experiences of pedagogy coming from three main resources: (1) a selection of historic and contemporary pedagogical accounts and figures, (2) resonances between

22  Introduction

Bergson’s philosophy and education drawn up in the first part of the book and (3) the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in the North Italian town Reggio Emilia. This second part of the book ends with an exploration of pedagogy’s object of knowledge and expresses this both in its classical sense as a question of preservation and renewal of culture, values and knowledge in education and society, and in a suggested sense as concerning French philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle’s (2018) notion of gentleness as a precondition for any real, becoming and free educational experiences and events to occur at all. Part III The Creative Contribution attempts to deal with the creative function of a book. Chapter 5 “Becoming Pedagogue: Intuition and Minor Methods” returns to the Bergsonian sources presented in the first parts of the book and introduces Canadian philosopher Erin Manning’s (2016) notion of the minor. Bergson and Manning’s work is joined with three minor methods: a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation and project-work and the chapter exemplifies the potential practical and theoretical use of these in the everyday life of ECEC. The chapter ends with an introduction to minor language and to the research-project The Magic of Language. Chapter 6 “Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education and Care: Minor Gestures” introduces Manning’s notion of minor gestures and exemplifies through a project-work with children called The Book three minor gestures that may be of value for ECEC educators and researchers alike: (1) an aesthetical gesture of contempla(c)tion, (2) an ethical gesture of creating enabling constraints and (3) a political gesture of engaging in composite rhythm. Despite the somewhat pretentious titles of the three parts of this book (and they really do sound pretentious, I have hesitated a lot) these should rather be understood as follows. First, that there is a global error called abstract formalism in education doesn’t mean that this is the only or even the worst problem in education. Neither is the error global in a geographical sense – it does not occur or present itself in the same way everywhere. The error is global rather in the sense of amplitude: it is where and when it occurs of a fundamental order that influences all parts of education – its whole status and modus. Second, that there is a great oblivion in education does not imply that pedagogy is the only thing forgotten (there are many things forgotten in education), and as said above, the return to pedagogy is not intended as an invitation to indulgence in nostalgia of the “Paradisaic” form. On the contrary, pedagogy is here treated in its past potential and duty to continuously transform – it all concerns a nostalgia for the future. Third, and finally, the creative contribution, even though it may seem as an “artistic” pretension, is not so “arty” at all. It is more of a fragile experiment and attempt to make some of the theoretical arguments in this book useful in the everyday practices of ECEC.

Introduction 23

Notes 1 This convention is later in the book questioned and discussed. 2 See for instance: Biesta & Säfström 2011; Cagliari, Castagnetti, Giudici, Rinaldi & Moss 2016; Dahlberg 2016a; Dahlberg & Moss 2005; Friesen 2017; Giamminuti, Merewether & Blaise 2021; Houssaye 2002, 2005, 2007; Hoyuelos 2013; Jaeger 1939/1945, 1943, 1944; Lewis 2014, 2017; Roberts & Saeverot 2018; Sundberg 2005). It is also important to acknowledge that these dimensions are not separated from each other and that a problem such as, for instance, the relation between the individual and society may also be framed as a political, or even an aesthetical problem. The framing of the respective problems as aesthetical, ethical and political made in the present book are motivated by how they are most clearly expressed within such dimensions in education and pedagogy as they encounter the theoretical resources used in this book. 3 This abbreviation is from here on used throughout the book. 4 Again, the distinction made in this book where critique is presented as a political and temporal problem in education, may in another context be framed differently. For instance, critique may be philosophically framed also as an aesthetical and ethical problem (see for instance, Raffsnö 2015). 5 Ils [les pédagogues] s’engagent dans une réalité éducative entre idées et actions, à l’articulation des deux, sans que l’on puisse prétendre que la réduction de l’une à l’autre puisse s’opérer. 6 This account is in Chapter 3 rendered more complex and complete through an international overview of current knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education. 7 This is a reoccurring question for anyone not formally trained in philosophy but nevertheless familiar with and eager to further explore its potential contribution to and exchange with pedagogy and education. In this case I seek support in the character of the main philosophical resource used in this book: Henri Bergson’s (1859–1941) oeuvre and stance in the question. As recalled by Vladimir Jankélévitch (2015/1959), Bergson never wanted to produce a “philosophical system” and he himself as well as some of his interpreters, not the least Jankélévitch, encouraged a specific kind of “innovative use” of his philosophy. As expressed by Jankélévitch in his beautiful speech at the commemoration of the hundred-years anniversary of Bergson’s birth: There are two ways not to be Bergsonian. The first is to be Bergsonian only on anniversaries, as if that exempted us from being Bergsonian all the other days, as if we had to square accounts once and for all. On that account, we may say, we might be better off being anti-Bergsonian. This anniversary must not resemble the all soul’s day that the living invented in order to think of their dead only once a year and then to think of them no more. I hope, therefore, that it is about renewal of Bergson’s thought and that we won’t wait for the second centenary to talk about it again. The second way not to be Bergsonian is to treat Bergson like a historical sample, to repeat what he said instead of acting the way he did, or to ‘situate’ Bergson’s philosophy instead of rethinking Bergson the way he wanted to be rethought. ( Jankélévitch as cited in Lefebvre & Schott 2015:254) The ambition, then, has been to rather than situating Bergson’s philosophy rethink it in relation to pedagogy and ECEC. However, the ambition has also been to account in a correct way for this great philosophical oeuvre. Here, due both to not being formally trained in philosophy and to the complexity of Bergson’s philosophy, I have had to rely on a large number of direct quotes from Bergson’s texts (available in the public domain). These quotes are nevertheless prolonged and put to work in the specific context within which this book is written and I also consider the frequent citing

24  Introduction

of Bergson’s works as a way of introducing a for ECEC practice and research largely unknown thinker – doing so is also part of the attempt to in the present book be precise when it comes to questions of education, pedagogy and philosophy. My hopes, then, are that this book without completely distorting or misrepresenting Bergson’s philosophical thought (and I’ve done my very best; I have read a lot…) manages making both innovative and just use of it in its encounter with pedagogy and ECEC. 8 Yet another theoretical resource (although different and complementary to the main theoretical perspective) of importance here is a long-time favourite Michel Foucault (1926–1984) (a friend always kept in my pocket, or rather as Erin Manning (2020) puts it: a “pocket-practice”), whose work may serve as a source and a tool for practising and thinking the past, present and future of education. 9 Arnaud Villani was at the time college teacher in philosophy and he had written conversations with Deleuze of which some are published in David Lapoujade’s (2015) edition Gilles Deleuze - Lettres et autres textes. Today, Villani is a renowned philosopher, and he has published a number of works inspired by Deleuze’s philosophy, not the least La Guêpe et l’Orchidée (1999) in which the above referred letter also is published.

References Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2010) Challenging the limits of critique in education through Morin’s paradigm of complexity, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29 (5), 477–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-010-9193-8 Allan, J. (2014) Making a difference – in theory – in Sweden and the UK, Education Inquiry, 5 (3), 319–335. 10.3402/edui.v5.24609. Arendt, H. (1958/1998) The human condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Baumann, S. (2017) Retrotopia. Malden, MA: Polity. Biesta, G. (2010) Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. London: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2011) Disciplines and theory in the academic study of education: A comparative analysis of the Anglo-American and Continental construction of the field, Culture & Society, 19 (2), 175–192. DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2011.582255. Biesta, G. (2017) The rediscovery of teaching. New York: Routledge. Biesta, G. and Stams, J. J. (2001) Critical thinking and the question of critique: Some lessons from deconstruction, Studies in Philosophy & Education 20 (1), 57–74. DOI: 10.1023/A:1005290910306. Biesta, G. and Säfström, C. A. (2011) A manifesto for education, Policy Futures in Education, 9 (5), 540–547. DOI: 10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.540. Biesta, G., Allan, J. and Edwards, R. (2011) The theory question in research capacity building in education: Towards an agenda for research and practice, British Journal of Educational Studies, 59 (3), 225–239. DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2011.599793. Bloch, M., Swadener, B. B. and Cannella, G. S. (2014) Reconceptualizing early childhood education and care: Critical questions, new imaginaries and social activism: A reader. New York: Peter Lang. Burbules, N. C. and Berk, R. (1999) Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: Relations, differences, and limits, in T. S. Popkewitz and L. Fendler, Critical theories in education: Changing terrains of knowledge and politics. London: Routledge. Cagliari, P., Castagnetti, M., Giudici, C., Rinaldi, C. and Moss, P. (2016) Loris Malaguzzi and the schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches 1945–1993. London: Routledge. Dahlberg, G. (2016a) An ethico-aesthetic paradigm as an alternative discourse to the quality assurance discourse, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17 (1), 124–133. DOI: 10.1177/1463949115627910.

Introduction 25

Dahlberg, G. and Moss, P. (2005) Ethics and politics in early childhood education. Oxfordshire: Routledge Falmer. Dahlberg, G., Moss, P. and Pence, A. (2013, 3rd ed.). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. London: Routledge. Debaise, D. and Stengers, I. (2016) L’insistance des possibles. Pour un pragmatisme spéculatif, Multitudes, 65 (4). https://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2016-4-page82.htm de Laval, S. (2018) Förskolans fysiska miljö: En kunskapsöversikt och förslag till utvärdering. Stockholm: Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting. Deleuze, G. (2004) Bergson, 1859-1941, in D. Lapoujade Desert Islands and other texts. Los Angeles & New York: Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2006) Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books. Deleuze, G. (2015) Lettre à Arnaud Villani, in D. Lapoujade Gilles Deleuze: Letters et autres textes. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Dewey, J. (1933) How we think - A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process. Boston: DC Heath and Company. Diaz-Diaz, C., Semenec, P. and Moss, P. (2019) Editorial: Opening for debate and contestation: OECD’s international early learning and child well-being study and the testing of children’s learning outcomes, Policy Futures in Education, 17 (1), 1–10. DOI: 10.1177/1478210318823464. Dufourmantelle, A. (2018) Power of gentleness: Meditations on the risk of living. New York: Fordham University Press. Edling, S. and Liljestrand, J. (2020) Let’s talk about teacher education! Analysing the media debates in 2016-2017 on teacher education using Sweden as a case, Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 48 (3), 251–266. DOI: 10.1080/ 1359866X.2019.1631255 Edwards, R. and Usher, R. (2008) Globalisation and pedagogy: Space, place and identity. London: Routledge. Edwards, R., Tracy, F. and Jordan, K. (2011) Mobilities, moorings and boundary marking in developing semantic technologies in educational practices, Research in Learning Technology, 19 (3). DOI: 10.1080/21567069.2011.624167 Ekström, A. (2021) Göteborgs skolor eftersatta: 3,5 miljarder i underhållsskuld, Göteborgsposten, 15 juni. https://www.gp.se/nyheter/g%C3%B6teborg/g%C3%B6teborgs-skolor-eftersatta-3-5-miljarder-i-underh%C3%A5llsskuld-1.49379191 Elfström, I. (2014) Uppföljning och utvärdering för förändring: pedagogisk dokumentation som grund för kontinuerlig verksamhetsutveckling och kvalitetsarbete i förskolan. Diss. Stockholm: Stockholm universitet. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:661443/fulltext02. pdf Englund, T. (2017) Brytpunkter och tendenser i svensk pedagogisk forskning, i M. Nilsson Sjöberg. Pedagogik som vetenskap: en inbjudan. Malmö: Gleerups. Fendler, L. (2001) Educating flexible souls: The construction of subjectivity through developmentality and interaction, in K. Hultqvist and G. Dahlberg, Governing the child in the new millennium. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Fias, W. (2017) The complexity of translating neuroscience to education: The case of number processing, in M. Vandenbroeck, J. DeVos, W. Fias, L. M. Olsson, H. Penn, D. Wastell and S. White, Constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Friesen, N. (2017) The pedagogical relation past and present: Experience, subjectivity and failure, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49 (6), 743–756. DOI: 10.1080/ 00220272.2017.1320427.

26  Introduction

Friesen, N. and Osguthorpe, R. (2018) Tact and the pedagogical triangle: The authenticity of teachers in relation, Teaching and Teacher Education, 70, 255–264. DOI: 10.1016/ j.tate.2017.11.023. Giamminuti, S., Merewether, J. and Blaise, M. (2021) Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research, Professional Development in Education, 47 (2–3), 436–448. DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2020.1862277 Greene, M. (2018/1988) The dialectic of freedom. New York: Teacher College Press. Grosz, E. (2004) The nick of time: Politics, evolution and the untimely. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Grosz, E. (2017) The incorporeal: Ontology, ethics and the limits of materialism. New York: Columbia University Press. Houssaye, J. (ed.) (2002) Premiers Pédagogues: De l’Antiquité à la Renaissance. Paris: ESF Éditeur. Houssaye, J. (ed.) (2005) Les Nouveaux Pédagogues Tome: Pédagogues de la Modernité. Paris: ESF Éditeur. Houssaye, J. (ed.) (2007) Les Nouveaux Pédagogues Tome 2: Pédagogues de demain? Paris: ESF Éditeur. Houssaye, J. (2014) Le triangle pédagogique: Les différentes facettes de la pédagogie. Issy-lesMoulineaux: ESF Éditeur. Hoyuelos, A. (2013) The ethics in Loris Malaguzzi’s philosophy. Rejkjavík: Ísalda. Jaeger, W. (1939/1945, 2nd ed.) Paideia – The ideals of Greek culture. Volume I Archaic Greece the mind of Athens. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Jaeger, W. (1943) Paideia –The ideals of Greek culture. Volume II in search of the divine centre. New York: Oxford University Press. Jaeger, W. (1944) Paideia –The ideals of Greek culture. Volume III the conflict of cultural ideals in the age of Plato. New York: Oxford University Press. Jankélévitch, V. (1959/2015) Henri Bergson, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott, Henri Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Krupinska, J. (2018) Bra skolhus stärker elevernas lärande, Svenska Dagbladet, 27 Mars. https://www.svd.se/a/qnbAGz/bra-skolhus-starker-elevernas-larande Lapoujade, D. (ed.) (2015) Gilles Deleuze: Letters et autres textes. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Lather, P. (1998) Critical pedagogy and its complicities: A Praxis of stuck places, Educational Theory, 48 (4), 487–497. https://doi-org.proxy.mau.se/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00487.x Lefebvre, A. and White, M. (eds.) (2012) Bergson, politics and religion. Durham: Duke University Press. Lefebvre, A. and Schott, N. F. (eds.) (2015) Henri Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Legrenzi, P. and Umilta, C. (2011) Neuromania – on the limits of brain science. Transl. Frances Anderson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lenz-Taguchi, H. and St. Pierre, E. A. (2017) Using concept as method in educational and social science inquiry, Qualitative Inquiry, 23 (9) 643–648. Lewis, T. E. (2014) The aesthetics of education: Theatre, curiosity and politics in the work of jacques rancière and paolo Freire. London: Bloomsbury. Lewis, T. E. (2017) Study time: Heidegger and the temporality of education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51 (1) 230–247. Løvlie, L. (2007) The pedagogy of place, Nordisk Pedagogik, 27 (1), 32–36. https://doi. org/10.18261/ISSN1891-5949-2007-01-03 MacLure, M. (2013a). Researching without representation? Language and materiality in post-qualitative methodology, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 26 (6), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2013.788755

Introduction 27

MacLure, M. (2013b) The wonder of data, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies, 13 (4), 228–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708613487863 MacRae, C., Hackett, A., Holmes, R. and Jones, L. (2018) Vibrancy, repetition and movement: Posthuman theories for reconceptualising young children in museums, Children’s Geographies, 16 (5), 503–515. DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2017.1409884 Manning, E. (2016) The minor gesture. Durham: Duke University Press. Manning, E. (2020) For a pragmatics of the useless. Durham: Duke University Press. Masschelein, J. and Simons, M. (2013) In defence of the school: A public issue. Leuven: E-ducation Culture and Society Publishers. Meirieu, P. (2007) Pédagogie: Le devoir de résister. Paris: ESF Éditeur. Mills, S. and Kraftl, P. (2016) Cultural geographies of education, Cultural Geographies, 23 (1), 19–27. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26168701 Moss, P. (2014) Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. London: Routledge. Moss, P. and Urban, M. (2017) The OECD’s international early learning study: What happened next, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 18 (2), 250–258. DOI:10.1177/ 1463949117714086 Moss, P. and Urban, M. (2020) The organisation for economic co-operation and development’s international early learning and child well-being study: The scores are in! Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21 (2) 165–17. https://doi. org/10.1177/1463949120929466 Moss, P., Dahlberg, G., Grieshaber, S., Mantovani, S., May, H., Pence, A., Rayna, S., Swadener, B. B. and Vandenbroeck, M. (2016). The organisation for economic co-operation and development’s international early learning study: Opening for debate and contestation, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17 (3), 343–351. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1463949116661126 Moten, F. (2018) The universal machine. Durham: Duke University Press. Murris, K. (2016) The Posthuman child: Educational transformation through philosophy with picturebooks. London: Routledge. Nilsson, M., Lecusay, R. and Alnervik, K. (2018) Undervisning i förskolan: Holistisk förskoledidaktik byggd på lek och utforskande, Utbildning & Demokrati, 7 (1), 9–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48059/uod.v27i1.1090 Nilsson, M., Lecusay, R., Alnervik, K. and Ferholt, B. (2018) Iscensättning av undervisning: Målrelationellt lärande i förskolan, Barn, 36 (3–4), 109–126. https://doi.org/ 10.5324/barn.v36i3-4.2900 O’Brien, M. and Roberts, S. (2018) 40 schools around Ireland threatened with closure over safety concerns, Irish Mirror, 24 October. https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/ irish-news/education/schools-closed-western-building-systems-13472463 OECD (2020) Early learning and child well-being: A study of five-year-olds in England, Estonia, and the United States. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/ 10.1787/3990407f-en Olsson, L. M. (2009) Movement and experimentation in young Children’s learning: Deleuze and guattari in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Olsson, L. M. (2013) Taking children’s questions seriously: The need for creative thought, Global Studies of Childhood, 4 (2), 230–253. https://doi.org/10.2304/gsch. 2013.3.3.230 Olsson, L. M. and Vandenbroeck, M. (2017) Preface, in M. Vandenbroeck, J. DeVos, W. Fias, L. M. Olsson, H. Penn, D. Wastell and S. White, Constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education. London: Routledge.

28  Introduction

Peters, M. A. (2017) Education in a post-truth world, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49 (6), 563–566. DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2016.1264114. Raffsnö, S. (2015) What is critique? The critical state of critique in the age of criticism. MPP working paper 1. Department of Management, Politics & Philosophy. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School. https://www.academia.edu/12623781/ What_Is_Critique_The_Critical_State_of_Critique_In_The_Age_Of_Criticism Roberts, P. and Saeverot, H. (2018) Education and the limits of reason – Reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov. London and New York: Routledge. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of freedom. Cambridge: University Press. Rose, N. and Abi-Rached, J. (2013) Neuro: The new brains sciences and the management of the mind. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. St. Pierre, E. A., Jackson, A. Y. and Mazzei, L. (2016). New empiricisms and new materialisms: Conditions for new inquiry, Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies, 16 (2), 99–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616638694 Santos, B. S. (ed.) (2010) Voices of the world. London: Verso. Schön, D. (1983) The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: Basic Books. Skolverket (2018) Läroplan för förskolan: Lpfö 18. Stockholm: Skolverket. https://www. skolverket.se/undervisning/forskolan/laroplan-for-forskolan/laroplan-lpfo-18for-forskolan Staunes, D. (2017) ‘Green with envy:’ affects and gut feelings as an affirmative, immanent, and trans-corporeal critique of new motivational data visualizations, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 31 (5), 409–421. https://doi.org/10.1080/09 518398.2018.1449983 Sundberg, D. (2005) Skolreformernas dilemman: En läroplansteoretisk studie av Kampen om tid i den svenska obligatoriska skolan. Diss. Växjö: Växjö University Press. SVT (2013) SVT granskar förskolan. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/amne/SVT% 20granskar%20f%C3%B6rskolan [2021-04-29] Säfström, C. A. (2019) Paideia and the search for freedom in the educational formation of the public of today, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 53 (4), 607–618. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9752.12385 Säfström, C. A. and Saeverot, H. (2017) Doing harm to educational knowledge, in M. Peters, B. Cowie and I. Menter, A companion to research in teacher education: An international guide to teacher education research, featuring leading scholars in the field. Singapore: Springer. Säfström, C. A., Månsson, N. and Osman, A. (2015) Whatever happened to teaching? Nordic Studies in Education 35 (3–4), 268–279. https://www.idunn.no/doi/abs/ 10.18261/ISSN1891-5949-2015-03-04-08 Taubman, P. M. (2009) Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York: Routledge. Taylor, A. (2013) Reconfiguring the natures of childhood. London: Routledge. Utbildningsdepartementet (2020) Betänkande av utredningen om fler barn i förskolan för bättre språkutveckling i svenska (2020:67). Stockholm: Utbildningsdepartementet. Vandenbroeck, M., DeVos, J., Fias, W., Olsson, L. M., Penn, H., Wastell, D. and White, S. (2017) Constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Vecchi, V. (2010) Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Vernon, R. (2020) Bergson and political theory, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott Interpreting Bergson: Critical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Villani, A. (1999) La Guêpe et l’Orchidée. Paris: Belin.

Part I

THE GLOBAL ERROR

1 THE ODOUR OF A FALSE PROBLEM

An Immoderate Taste for False Problems Hanna Arendt’s book The Human Condition was published in 1958, a year after Sputnik 1, the first artificial earth satellite was launched into space by the Russians, and this is how Arendt describes the reaction to this event: In 1957, an earth-born object made by man was launched into the universe, where for some weeks it circled the earth according to the same laws of gravitation that swing and keep in motion the celestial bodies – the sun, the moon, and the stars. To be sure, the man-made satellite was no moon or star, no heavenly body which could follow its circling path for a time span that to us mortals, bound by earthly time, lasts from eternity to eternity. Yet, for a time it managed to stay in the skies; it dwelt and moved in the proximity of the heavenly bodies as though it had been admitted tentatively to their sublime company (…) The immediate reaction, expressed on the spur of the movement, was relief about the first ‘step toward escape from men’s imprisonment to the earth’ (…) The banality of the statement should not make us overlook how extraordinary in fact it was; for although Christians have spoken of the earth as a vale of tears and philosophers have looked upon their body as a prison of mind or soul, nobody in the history of mankind has ever conceived of the earth as a prison for men’s bodies or shown such eagerness to go literally from here to the moon. Should the emancipation and secularization of the modern age, which began with a turning-away, not necessarily from God, but from a god who was the Father of men in heaven, end with an even more fateful repudiation of an Earth who was the Mother of all living creatures under the sky? (Arendt 1958/1998:1–2) DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-3

32  The Global Error

When Arendt in this book expresses the scientific interest for escaping the human condition and expanding the lifespan of the human being through rendering human life “artificial” and “automated”, one cannot but think about our contemporary situation with its’ efforts in areas of artificial intelligence, robotization and our specific time-period’s desire to tame life through abstracting and formalising, not the least by way of inserting the prefix “neuro” before nearly every human practice (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013; Vandenbroeck et al. 2017). Still, and even though one might sense that nothing ever changes, there are today some interesting twists and turns to the old-age desire to “escape men’s imprisonment to the earth”. Arendt’s story amplifies when we consider that following Sputnik 1 came the launching of a dog into space, then human beings, and now – just in this writing moment – a car. The Tesla Roadster was sent up with the Falcon Heavy rocket on the 6th February of 2018. Precisely 60 years later, we seem to witness the same old desire to escape earth-bound human conditions and conquer celestial space. Although now not only with humans (or dogs for that matter). This time celestial space is to be conquered also with a car. As if one machine (the rocket) wasn’t enough. As if yet another machine (the car) should be permitted amongst the company of celestial bodies. As if our desire for escaping the human condition is symbolized no longer only by our celestial ambitions but also by our mechanic capacities. In a sense, this might have been what Arendt already anticipated: We do not yet know whether this situation is final. But it could be that we, who are earth-bound creatures and have begun to act as though we were dwellers of the universe, will forever be unable to understand, that is, to think and speak, about the things which nevertheless we are able to do. In this case, it would be as though our brain, which constitutes the physical, material conditions of our thoughts, were unable to follow what we do, so that from now one we would indeed need artificial machines to do our thinking and speaking. (Arendt 1998:3) Is the situation final? Have we completely given up our ability to think and speak about that which we are able to do, relying instead on artificial machines to do our thinking and speaking? When it comes to the way abstract formalism is expressed in education this might be the case. However, the artificial machines to which we have surrendered our ability to think and speak about that which we are nevertheless able to do in education might not (yet) pertain so much to technology or machines per se, but rather to the empty procedures that plague education on all levels. When everything in education – human subjects as well as culture, knowledge and values – is judged in relation to simplified notions of given problems and questions that correspond to equally given solutions and answers, education is reduced to empty processes of simple recognition and representation. Here, in any given educational situation, it matters little what and

The Odour of a False Problem 33

who is at stake. It follows the same procedure as last year. Educational contexts, complexities and relations are to be reduced and knowledge is to be handed over in a carefully pre-packaged form without any kind of superfluous extras from one that knows to one that does not know. This instrumental mechanism seems far more erroneous and troublesome than any imaginable machine. Rather than glorifying or dismissing artificial intelligence, robotization, neuroscience and/or technology in education, a much more urgent discussion seems to concern our very conception of education. Abstract formalism may present a danger more important than any artificial machine in education as it harbours something similar to what Belgian Professors in Philosophy, Isabelle Stengers and Didier Debaise, state about our contemporary times as being marked by “an immoderate taste for false problems, infernal alternatives, a certain kind of laziness of thought or ‘bêtise’” as well as, at its worst, “a desertification of all modes of existence”1 (Debaise & Stengers 2016:83, my translation). Abstract formalism, with or without artificial machines, presents itself as the sole and unproblematic alternative focusing only simple and effective solutions in education. It lazily avoids all thought and practice that render education contextual, complex and relational and it omits speech, thought and action connected to real educational experiences and events, where children and teachers become and are free to both study and transform themselves and the World. In short, abstract formalism omits Life in preschools and schools. However, anyone that has been even remotely close to very young children that continuously thwarts both control and outcome, and who constantly bring life to both real and new problems sense and scents this as a tremendous error. There is something in contemporary abstract formalism in education that emanates an immoderate taste for and an odour of false problems.

Henri Bergson and How to Recognize a False Problem French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) gave us an appropriate task begging to be performed in the current educational situation, namely that of recognizing a false problem. Within Western philosophical and scientific traditions, Bergson brought forward a corpus of work that all the while put the there within established scientific and philosophical problems on their head. Not least the problems so central to this book concerning real, becoming and free aspects of human beings and the world. In relation to the turn of the 20th century’s positivist scientific and spatial conceptions of reality, as consisting of quantitatively measurable bodies, things, states and properties, Bergson put forward a notion of reality that widens the conception of the human and her place in nature through directing attention towards qualitative, durational and unpredictably transformative aspects of both human and world. In the matter of metaphysical traditions, which for Bergson too often indulged in empty speculation and abstract conceptions too far away from such a reality, he claimed the necessity of precision in relation to the status and modus of human consciousness, action and experience in the world. In respect to both determinist and libertarian accounts of freedom,

34  The Global Error

who (in different but still similar ways) situate free will and freedom within spatialized notions of time and outside duration, Bergson placed free will and freedom, literally and as the subtitle of his first major work on the issue states, in the immediate data of consciousness. Through the “method of intuition” such immediacy was actualized also as an alternative mode of knowledge; Bergson’s method challenged both science and philosophy in their too narrow and too wide epistemological claims, and they both saw their respective tasks as well as their relation transformed by Bergsonian themes. When asked about the main theme of his own work, Bergson simply stated: “I have said that time is not space”2 (Worms 2009:34, my translation). The neglect and underestimation of time as lived and living duration – flowing in the intervals between and within spatial and material bodies, things, states and properties – is what Bergson holds against both science and philosophy. Science is considered responsible for the mathematical reduction of the durational flow of time to spatialized “clock-time”, and philosophy is considered responsible for the lack of attention to lived and living duration due to a misplacement of philosophical problems outside time and in purely speculative constructs. Both science and philosophy are by Bergson considered as equally responsible for having addressed time only through the “language of space” and for not having seen or acknowledged the positive attributes of time as continuous movement and change. This neglect of time as lived and living duration as movement and as change entails neglect of the becoming, creative and novel aspects of human beings and the world and thereby also their potential freedom. However, even though “time is of the essence” in Bergson’s work it may be these latter features that ultimately stood in the centre of his endeavours: Time was a tool and Bergson its’ Homo Faber in the audacious attempt to find a more positive than positivist and a more precise than philosophical account of the unceasingly and creatively changing reality and freedom of both human and world.3 In short, Bergson was against but also in relation with his contemporary science and metaphysics searching for the non-mechanist and non-finalist biological, physical and psychological vital impetus – l’élan vital – of real Life.4 Philosopher of Life, Bergson embarked on an empirical and conceptual journey that took him far into but also well beyond past and contemporaneous scientific and philosophical traditions of his time. Because of this timely and untimely challenge to established doctrines Bergson’s presence in the history of Western philosophy is of a particularly intriguing character. By French philosopher Frédéric Worms (2009), Bergson is described as part of a particular “philosophical moment” concerning French 1900s’ conceptions of l’esprit/spirit, but also of matter (see also Sommer MacGrath 2020). By Australian philosopher Elizabeth Grosz (2004), Bergson is beautifully named as the “last of the great metaphysicians”, described as “writing at the cusp between high modernism and positivism” and as being “conceptually located somewhere between the flourishing of phenomenology and the increasing hostility to ontology and metaphysics that

The Odour of a False Problem 35

developed with ever greater force through the emergence of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of science” (Grosz 2004:155). Bergson’s work was indeed met with hostility, not the least by the growing movements of analytic philosophy and the philosophy of science as well as – although in a more complex manner – phenomenology, but not initially. Contemporary scholars recall a proper “Bergson boom” occurring by the turn of the 20th century and engaging not only scientific and philosophical movements (Sinclair 2020). Bergson was, for instance, influential in artistic avant-garde movements, he played an important diplomatic role in World War I, from 1922 to 1925 he was the president of the League of Nations’ International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (now UNESCO), and he was awarded the Nobel prize in literature 1927 (ibid). Bergson obtained fame as an internationally renowned philosophical “superstar” and not only scholars, but members of the entire Parisian high society, of which many were women, came in masses to his lecture (Herring 2019). His lectures at Collège de France would see more than 700 people trying to fit into a room taking half of this amount of people and when he lectured abroad venues were crammed to the last seat. Legend even has it that his lecture at Columbia University in 1913 caused the first traffic jam to ever have occurred on Broadway, Manhattan in New York (Herring 2019; Sinclair 2020).5 But somewhat ironically and despite the focus on metaphysical movement, as recalled by American philosopher Leonard Lawlor (2010), Bergson never produced a “movement” and the “boom” quite quickly turned into “bust” (Sinclair 2020). There is the famous debate with German-born American physicist Albert Einstein (1879–1955) on scientific time and philosophical time that from a too hasty and perhaps even erroneous interpretation it seems Bergson lost (Canales 2015; Sinclair 2020). There are also the many misinterpretations performed by phenomenologists that often conceived Bergson’s attempt to join the sides in the various dualisms that mark philosophical thought as either “a thoroughgoing materialism or an unrealistically optimistic spiritualism” (Kelly 2010: 3).6 This was also the case with the perhaps most vicious of critiques put forward by British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), who conceived in Bergson’s work only the latter, unqualified spiritualism, and accused Bergson’s philosophy of lacking “contemplative insight” and of reducing the human intellect to nothing but animal instinct: “intuition is at its best in bats, bees and Bergson” (Russell as cited in Sinclair 2020: 158; ibid). Further, there have also been issues pertaining to the reception of Bergson’s philosophy. As recalled by Frédéric Worms (2019a) the above-mentioned concepts L’Élan vital and Homo Faber might be the most common and still perhaps least understood of all of Bergson’s concepts: L’élan vital being interpreted as the “metaphysical Vitamin C pill” to feel better when you rise up in the morning, and Homo Faber being expounded as the “earthbound ouvrier” to whom any kind of technical device outside the human body and imagination is dawned but not dared.

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There are also some more internal issues with Bergson’s philosophy as it at moments lent itself not only to diplomatic contributions but also to less flattering political engagement in the service of national authorities up to and during World War I. Moreover, Bergson’s sometimes “elitist” ideas of education in the service of the Conseil Supérieure de L’Instruction Public in France, not the least in relation to how France treated its colony Maroc, gives one pause (Sommer MacGrath 2020). Scholars today debate whether and in what sense Bergson’s work could be considered harbouring both colonialist and racist tendencies and opinions here differ. There is an evocation of problematic notions of the “primitive” in Bergson’s last major work The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1977/1932) at the same time as there is attention directed to how Bergson has served as a source for Western, Latin American, African and Black European thinkers in challenging Westernized and Eurocentric thinking (Glezos 2019; Lefebvre & White 2012; Pitts & Westmoreland 2019). To this, we might add that even though women came in masses to Bergson’s lectures, and even though both his view on women and his philosophy could be said to present an early feminist philosophical alternative, Bergson still hesitated as to whether the time was ripe (!) for women to obtain the right to vote (Herring 2019). On top of that, and as far as I can see, something that has not yet been evoked within the contemporary critique of Bergson’s work concerns the image of the child. That image is, in fact, quite difficult to get a grip on and quite confusing.7 Children, even though portraited as “inventors” and “seekers”, “always on the watch for novelty” (Bergson 2007/1934:68), are also paired with the problematic notion of the “primitive” (Bergson 1977/1932). Children are on occasions made to metaphorically exemplify what is described as “deficits” of various schools of philosophy, but on other occasions, children are rather made to exemplify some of the most complex and “refined” moments of thought (Bergson 1977/1932:125). Despite such confusion and the misconception, misfortune and misjudgement that may be attributed to Bergson’s oeuvre and its reception, it still seems to be of value and importance for the present book. Even though Bergson too may be guilty of a certain Westernized logic, his work carries the potential of being a valuable resource not only in the contemporary educational situation in general but also more specifically (and perhaps a bit paradoxically) in the attempt to overcome troublesome Eurocentrism in education. It is here a question of appealing to the most creative aspects of Bergson’s metaphysical and ontological propositions. Through using these in relation to our contemporary educational situation, there is the possibility of re-formulating not only educational problems but also to prolong and create new meaning and sense of the philosophical perspective in question. It all concerns, as beautifully expressed by French historian of ideas Michel Foucault (1926–1984), a relationship where theory may broaden the domains for practical intervention and where practice may contribute to an intensification of theory (Foucault 1984). In such an ongoing mutual process, neither the philosophy of Bergson nor the contemporary educational situation and its problems are given once and for all. There is rather an ongoing creation

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and transformation of both. As recalled by Andrea J. Pitts and Mark William Westmoreland (2019), this is what Deleuze made a call for when pondering upon the potential use of Bergson’s legacy: A ‘return to Bergson’ does not only mean a renewed admiration for a great philosopher but a renewal or an extension of his project today, in relation to the transformations of life and society, in parallel with the transformations of science. (Deleuze 2006:115) This, though, has been one of the most complicated aspects of working this book through: how to navigate an attempt to re-visit, re-vivify and re-unite a history of pedagogy and a historical philosophical figure that are so profoundly set in a topographical context contributing to one of the very problems this book wants to overcome? In other words, is it justifiable or even possible to use a European pedagogical tradition and a European philosophical thinker in attempting to overcome the flagrant Eurocentrification of that same tradition and thinker? After much nervous consideration, I have decided to at least try. I believe that there are resources both within a continental tradition of pedagogy and Bergson’s philosophy that may in a way be turned against themselves to also re-invent them in relation to the contemporary context and its problems. I believe that the inherently innovative and pragmatic aspect of continental pedagogy when confronted with its own Eurocentrification and the current educational context and problems may be forced to transform also its own topographical location. I also believe that Bergson’s philosophy when confronted with its own geopolitical limitations and the current educational context and problems may be forced to leave behind any idealized and reductive ideas of nations-states, colonization and/or categorizations of individuals according to distributed attributes. In sum, I believe it is worth trying and both justifiable and possible to use flagrantly flawed historical resources through appealing to their own source of creativity both against them and with them in an attempt to also re-invent them in relation to our contemporary – just as flawed and resourceful – context and problems.8 This also seems to be the case for other scholars as testified by the steadily rising international interest for Bergson’s work during later years (Ansell Pearson & Ó Maoilearca 2014; Kelly 2010; Lefebvre & Schott 2020).9 In education and pedagogy, however, Bergson has so far received little interest. Some exceptions and great examples of work exist though. Examples of classical works come from French philosophers Rose-Marie Mossé-Bastide’s (1909–1999) (1955) Bergson éducateur and Jean Lombard’s (1997) Bergson: Création et Éducation. Examples of more contemporary contributions addressing Bergson in education and pedagogy are Danilo Melo’s (2019) article “Notes towards a Pedagogy of Movement: on will and education in Henri Bergson”; Keith Ansell Pearson’s (2018) book-chapter “Bergson on Education and the Art of Life”; Kaustuv Roy’s (2005a) article “An Untimely Intuition: Adding a Bergsonian Dimension to Experience and

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Education” and book (2019) Teachers and teaching: Time and the creative tension and Peter Roberts and Herner Saeverot’s (2018) book-chapter “Education arrayed in time: Nabokov and the problem of time and space”. Melo’s (2019) article addresses learning difficulties as pertaining to obstacles to will and calls for a “pedagogy of movement” capable of surpassing these. Ansell Pearson (2018) dedicates a chapter to education and the art of life and points towards two modes of education possible to draw from Bergson’s work: one pertaining to the intellect and to critique and the other to intuition and creativity. Roy’s (2005a, 2019) article and book consistently put to work Bergson’s notion of duration and through both empirical and theoretical exploration, durational time is presented as an alternative to the “clock-time” that so influences education today. Roberts and Saeverot (2018) are in their chapter reading Bergson’s notion of time parallel to Nabokov’s novels, and connect Bergsonian duration with freedom, tact and tenderness in education. When it comes to younger children and ECEC there seems so far to be even less interest in Bergson, but some truly interesting contributions have been found in Elizabet de Freitas and Francesca Ferrara’s (2015) article “Movement, Memory and Mathematics: Henri Bergson and the ontology of learning”. Through both theoretical and empirical exploration of math-activities in a classroom, the corporeal, material and transformative aspects of both Bergson’s thought and numbers and mathematics themselves are here illustrated in a fascinating way. Also, Bronwyn Davies’ (2014) Listening to Children: Being and Becoming and the opening towards the potential in joining some of Bergson’s notions in his third major work Creative Evolution (1907/2007) with a pedagogy of listening is here of importance. Bergson produced four major works that according to British philosopher Marc Sinclair (2020) may be characterized as all pertaining to his work on time, where Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience/Time and Free Will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013) would address the present, Matière et Mémoire: Essai sur la relation du corps à l’esprit/Matter and Memory (1896/1991) the past, L’Évolution Créatrice/Creative Evolution (1907/2007) the future and, finally, Les Deux Sources de la Morale et de la Religion/The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932/1977) addressing eternity. However, and as stated by both Vladimir Jankélévitch (1959/2015) and Frédéric Worms (2013a), it is also of importance to see each piece of work as addressing a particular philosophical problem and not commit the error of reading into Bergson’s own work a chronological and causal order, forcing upon the work a development that masks the particularity of each problem affronted. Still, it is also apparent that the conception of duration treated primarily in relation to the psychological realm in opposition to spatiality in the early work is altered in later works so far as to also concern the material world (Sinclair 2020). Just as the focus on the inner life of an individual in Bergson’s early work is later shifted towards a greater focus on the social sphere (Zanfi 2020:33–34). In the above-mentioned works, Bergson is rarely expressing himself directly on the question of education. His explicit reasonings on education are found in posthumously published courses, conferences, correspondences and

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addresses in the many different contexts that he was engaged in (Zanfi 2020). In the present book it is, however, Bergson’s major works that have been of most use. While Bergson’s explicit reasonings on education certainly are of interest even today, it is rather the metaphysical and ontological aspects exposed in the major works that have proven most useful in relation to the contemporary educational situation. That said, some important insights into Bergson’s conception of education in sources other than the major works have been gained through the classical pieces of Rose-Marie Mossé-Bastide (1955) and Jean Lombard (1997) that both explore the above-mentioned posthumously published material. Apart from the four major works, Bergson’s last book The Creative Mind: An introduction to metaphysics (1934/2007) and the edition of Bergson’s first course L’Évolution du Problème de la Liberté (1904–05/2017) given from his professorial chair in the history of modern philosophy at Collège de France, have been of importance for the present book. The former served as an entry point to Bergson’s philosophy and thereby created a reading that Frédéric Worms (2019a) calls (and recommends) une lecture à contretemps10 where in the effort to make use of his legacy Bergson’s last book becomes the first. The latter served as a focal point throughout the whole writing-process as freedom is the most central problem for education and pedagogy. For the present book, then, it is Bergson’s last book, the four major pieces of work and his course on the evolution of the problem of freedom together with interpretations from past and contemporary thinkers that have been of the most importance. All these resources responded most clearly to the problem of how to evoke some real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. Bergson’s writing is both complex and simple but more than anything elegant and, perhaps surprisingly, humoristic. There is an irresistible and relieving sense of dry humour just at the right distance from any self-acclamation or pretentious account. The work is complex and some texts, not the least Matter and Memory (1896/1991), are difficult. At the same time, the texts are simple as they not only put forward critique against abstract generalizations but engage in a style of writing that itself refuses to dwell only in these spheres. There is an abundance of very concrete everyday experiences and events such as getting up in the morning (Bergson 1904–05/2017:20), raising one’s hand (Bergson 1907/2007:59) and, perhaps the most famous one: a piece of sugar put into a glass of water (Bergson 1907/2007:6) – this last example demonstrating that unlike in the symbolic mathematical equation on a paper in real life one must wait until the sugar dissolves. All of this, this insistence upon precision and the hard work of obtaining such preciseness through attending not only to complex conceptual and metaphysical thought but also to the (equally if not more complex) concrete and practical, may somewhat ironically have contributed to the decline of Bergson’s work. As stated by American philosopher Michael R. Kelly: “Clarity in writing can condemn a philosopher to obscurity” (Kelly 2010:2). It is, however, apart from the obvious potential in how Bergsonian themes resonate with the contemporary educational situation also this very clarity that

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makes Bergson’s work of interest for education and pedagogy. Not only may the contemporary educational situation with its doubted and debated real, its apparently stagnated and immobile logic, and its reduction of freedom benefit from Bergson’s oeuvre, but it is also the preciseness and particular relation between thought and act – visible and performed throughout his work – that is of interest for education and pedagogy in the contemporary situation. Below, this is put to practice through using Bergson’s notion of a false problem in a critical consideration of abstract formalism in contemporary education. Throughout his work Bergson condemned false problems and insisted upon the necessity of applying the true and the false to problems themselves rather than to already given solutions. Here, discovering or uncovering a problem or a solution is not enough; it is the invention of a problem that counts. In this process, neither the problem nor the solution pre-exists – the problem rather comes into existence only once it is solved (Bergson 1934/2007:37). However, and as seen in the introduction to this book, in the current educational situation, abstract formalism is allowed to proceed as if there is never any problem-posing process and it presents itself as a given solution. So, more precisely, how is abstract formalism in education itself constructed as a problem? And why do we scent and sense it as a global and tremendous error? Why does it emanate the odour of a false problem? False problems may be recognized by three main characteristics expressed in how they (1) confuse quantity and quality in relation to knowledge and being, (2) produce illusions due to badly analyzed composites of experiences and (3) omit duration through spatializing time (Bergson 1934/2007, Deleuze 2006). In line with this, abstract formalism in education is a false problem as it: 1. confuses quantity and quality through measuring qualitative aspects of education, children, pupils, students and teachers quantitatively, 2. produces illusions of Logos and World through reducing perception to knowledge in an aesthetical dimension of education and produces illusory fabulations of the Individual and Society through disconnected self-reflection in an ethical dimension of education, 3. omits duration within a political dimension of education through “intelligent” and “linguistic” retrospective critique that arrests educational subjects and objects and forces them as well as time itself, Past, Present and Future, to obey a spatial logic. This is further described in the next sections.

Abstract Formalism in Education: Quantitative-Qualitative Confusion Within abstract formalism, it is stated that educational practices and the human subjects therein may be quantitatively measured according to a predefined and external scale of “quality”. Let’s be careful here. “Quality” as it is defined within

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abstract formalism in contemporary education is in no way a qualitative notion. It is imbued with a quantitative measure of what is presented as qualitative attributes (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013). This is one reason why abstract formalism in education may be defined as a false problem; the first characteristic of a false problem is precisely that it confuses quantity and quality. Bergson begins his first major work, his dissertation, Time and Free Will – An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013) by stating that both in certain sciences, particularly at that time the scientific discipline of “psycho-physics”, and in common sense “[I]t is usually admitted that states of consciousness, sensations, feelings, passions, efforts are capable of growth and diminution; we are even told that a sensation can be said to be twice, thrice, four times as intense as another sensation of the same kind” (Bergson 1889/2013:1). However, throughout his work, and particularly in this first book, Bergson shows how sensations and psychological states in general – all the way from love and hatred to the sensation of muscular effort and the experience and perception of colours – are misunderstood as measurable quantities: Having made up our mind, once and for all, to interpret changes of quality as changes of quantity, we begin by asserting that every object has its own peculiar colour, definite and variable. And when the hue of objects tends to become yellow or blue, instead of saying that we see their colour change under the influence of an increase or diminution of light, we assert that the colour remains the same but that our sensation of luminous intensity increases or diminishes. We thus substitute once more, for the qualitative impression received by our consciousness, the quantitative interpretation given by our understanding. (Bergson 1889/2013:51) Psychophysics is here described as committing to the same mistake as common sense when it confuses quality with quantity and seeks “to measure the one as it measures the other” (Bergson 1889/2013:71). The confusion is indeed performed in relation to many phenomena and on many levels. Not only the sciences but each and one of us also confuses the most personal experiences of qualitative phenomena with quantity and measurement of magnitudes. Here’s an experiment given by Bergson to perform that reveals such confusion: Try, for example, to clench the fist with increasing force. You will have the impression of a sensation of effort entirely localized in your hand and running up a scale of magnitudes. In reality, what you experience in your hand remains the same, but the sensation which was at first localized there has affected your arm and ascended to the shoulder; finally, the other arm stiffens, both legs do the same, the respiration is checked; it is the whole body which is at work. (Bergson 1889/2013:24–25)

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Now, Bergson’s argument is that not until you are made aware of all these different and accompanying movements will you discover them – if proceeding unaware of the qualitative details in these you tend to treat the increasing force as “a single state of consciousness which changed in magnitude” (Bergson 2013/1889:25). For Bergson, any time qualitative aspects of being and knowledge (of colours, muscular effort and other things) are quantitatively defined in terms of more or less, this is a sign of a false problem having been stated (Bergson 1934/2007). This certainly seems to be the case in the contemporary educational situation and despite all talk of quality, we can sense and scent that it is only quantitative measurements that count. Here, the original task of education – creating time and space for the new generation not only to quantitatively study but also to qualitatively transform culture, values and knowledge – is lost.11 How come? The transformational aspects of education are of course also recognized by the discourse of abstract formalism. In fact, it builds its whole raison d’être as well as the prospect of “improvement” on the idea of transformation through education. However, the intended transformation here never stretches further than that which is expected and identified by quantitative measurement of qualitative attributes. Transformation, then, is still thought of in quantitative terms of more or less – there is a specific amount of a certain culture, knowledge and values that is to be taught and learned. But education is, inevitably, an unexpectedly and unpredictably transformational practice and such transformation, inevitably, implies no longer only the quantitative discovery of what is already known, but also the qualitative invention of new culture, knowledge and values. If culture, knowledge and values are to be not only studied as they quantitatively are but also qualitatively transformed by the new generation, knowledge must be allowed to enter also this mode where problems are invented. Moreover, education is not only about the transformation of culture, values and knowledge. It is also about the transformation of human subjects. One of the most fundamental aspects of education is that it allows for the human subject, the child, the pupil, the student and the teacher to become otherwise (Masschelein & Simons 2013). For sure, the discourse of abstract formalism claims that it is exactly the transformation of the human subject that stands at its centre. However, and again, the intended transformation is very limited in scope – the child, the pupil, the student and the teacher are meant to transform only in accordance with the very specific characteristics of an ideal Being. If they do not adapt to this, they are and exist to a lesser extent – they are lacking being(s). When Bergson describes a false problem from the point of view of being he shows how the more and the less are confused and how actually – and despite notions of lack – there is not less, but more in the idea of not being than in the idea of being, as the former contains the idea of being, plus the negation of being as well as the motive for that negation (Bergson 1934/2007:79–81). Current abstract and formalist discourse on the child, pupil, student and teacher, however, projects the imagined and

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ideal being of a child, pupil, student or teacher back and contrasts it only with the non-being of a child, pupil, student or teacher. As if preceding this image is non-being: any deviation from the general idea of being is considered a lack. Being is considered given and what happens is, that this effectively hides the creative act of the continuous becoming of children, pupils, students and teachers. It thereby obliterates the fundamental task of education: to make time and space for children, pupils, students and teachers to become and transform in qualitative unpredictable and unexpected ways. Within abstract formalism the intellectual and practical foundation of education disappears when knowledge and being are thought of solely in quantitative terms more or less. From the perspective here deployed this can be nothing but a false problem; it completely misses out on the necessity that “quantity must be thought quantitatively and quality qualitatively” ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:152). Not acknowledging this is, as Deleuze states: “perhaps the most general error of thought, the error common to science and metaphysics” (Deleuze 2006:20), as it effectively omits any real aspects of knowledge and being. Abstract formalism is, then, a false problem as it by a double move confuses quantity and quality in both human beings and the content of education. It thereby betrays and obliterates two essential features in and of education: the potential of culture, knowledge, values as well as human subjects to qualitatively and unpredictably transform. Below we will see how this error plays out in neglected aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions in education.

Logos and World in Abstract Formalist Education: Aesthetic Illusion Already in the very first words in Arendt’s book quoted in the introduction to this chapter – and despite the choice of the term celestial “bodies” – we can sense and scent one of the problems addressed: the old-age distinction between earthbound active bodies and celestial contemplative minds. Throughout the book, Arendt reminds us that this distinction does come with an accompanying hierarchy. From the very beginning, “vita activa” is subordinated to “vita contemplativa”. Mindful contemplation, safely distanced from necessary and life-sustaining acts and activities, has always been the ideal. Today the problem seems to have lost nothing of its’ actuality. Although now it seems to have magnified and subordination seems to concern both the earthbound and the celestial: earthbound educational buildings are falling down and learning is lost in celestial space. Conceptions of the relation between Logos – the human mind and its capacity for language – and the World, material things and the sensuous and bodily experiences we have of these – may, as stated in the introduction, be framed as an aesthetical problem. Today both Logos and World seem to have become so abstracted and formalized that neither real human minds nor real material buildings or (human and more-than-human) bodies in education really matter – all seems to be reduced to illusions.

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The production of illusions is the second characteristic of a false problem, and it appears, according to Deleuze’s interpretation of Bergson, through how we live on and of “badly analysed composites” (Deleuze 2006:17). What do these “composites” imply? In the case of the aesthetic problem in education, the composite that underlies the coupled relation of Logos-World may be described as made up of on the one hand “matter” and on the other hand “mind”. As seen in the introduction, matter and the material aspects of education are today neglected, even to the point that the very buildings where education is supposed to take place are deteriorating. In this sense, our mind seems to be separated from the World and material bodies (including our own body) and things. On the other hand, we also saw that there is a “crisis of mind” in education, as learning has become an emptied concept, abstractedly and formalistically assessed through purely linguistic procedures. In this sense, we seem to have limited access to our minds. Yet, the most (dis)illusionary are still capable of talking about quality, results and effectiveness. The badly analyzed composites upon which we live and through which illusions are produced have their origins in thought that reduce the real to abstract generalizations and undifferentiated notions of (amongst other things) matter and mind. Difference is here subsumed by illusion and reduced to either external comparison or internal constitution. As seen above, either difference is treated in a comparative mode according to an external quantitative scale – education, children, students and teachers are measured in terms of adapting more or less to such scale. Or difference is treated in a constitutive mode in relation to predefined internal characteristics and in terms of negation – education, children, students and teachers are considered as lacking in relation to a generalized ideal being. In this way, contemporary abstract formalism in education is ridden by a notion of difference as quantitative comparison and/or negative constitution and as stated by Elizabeth Grosz, what both conceptions share: “is an understanding of difference as a relation of two terms, whether construed as external to each other, or as internal to an entity, which entails an implicit or third term” (Grosz 2005:5). Perhaps, then, it is the very implicitness of this third term and its’ distance to all that differs within real educational experiences and events that renders abstract and formalist conceptions of education, children, pupils, students and teachers illusory. But where does this implicit “third term” come from? And how come that it is so allowed to condition educational experiences and events, even more than conditions such as, for instance, the material buildings where education takes place? In his second major work Matter and Memory (1991/1896) Bergson shows how abstract, generalized, and undifferentiated composites of matter and mind may be traced back to how “perception” and the relation between material bodies (including our own body) and the mind has been treated throughout the Western history of philosophy. The philosophical heritage from the earliest philosophical schools of idealism and realism is by Bergson questioned when he claims that

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both have gone “too far” because: “it is a mistake to reduce matter to the perception which we have of it, a mistake also to make of it a thing able to produce in us perceptions, but in itself of another nature than they” (Bergson 1896/1991:9). Bergson here questions the realist thesis that it is material things that create our perceptions as “sense-data”, but of another nature than things themselves. Bergson equally questions the idealist thesis that works in the opposite direction, where mental representations are produced independently of, but coincide with material things. Such notions of perception, especially when continuously confounded, only contribute according to Bergson to undifferentiated notions of mind and matter and the production of illusions. Ultimately, the critique that Bergson directs towards both idealism and realism concerns how such confusion reduce perception to epistemology and a “theory of knowledge in general”, thereby also reducing reality to “subjective states”, either through “construction” or through “symbolism”: For realism, in fact, the invariable order of the phenomena of nature lies in a cause distinct from our perceptions, whether this cause must remain unknowable, or whether we can reach it by an effort (always more or less arbitrary) of metaphysical construction. For the idealist, on the contrary, these perceptions are the whole of reality, and the invariable order of the phenomena of nature is but the symbol whereby we express, alongside of real perceptions, perceptions that are possible. But, for realism as for idealism, perceptions are ‘veridical hallucinations,’ states of the subject, projected outside himself, and the two doctrines differ merely in this: that, in the one, these states constitute reality; in the other, they are sent forth to unite with it. But behind this illusion lurks yet another that extends to the theory of knowledge in general. (Bergson 1896/1991:68) What happens within such confusion and reduction of perception to a theory of knowledge is that it becomes purely speculative: “If we now look closely at the two doctrines, we shall discover in them a common postulate, which we may formulate thus: perception has a wholly speculative interest; it is pure knowledge (…) for both parties, to perceive means above all to know. Now it is just this postulate that we dispute” (Bergson 1896/1991:28, original emphasis). In such confused speculation what also gets lost is any notion of bodies that act. Neither idealism nor realism manages, due to their speculative interest for pure knowledge, to account for action: So the obscurity of realism, like that of idealism, comes from the fact that, in both of them, our conscious perception and the conditions of our conscious perception are assumed to point to pure knowledge, not to action. (Bergson 1896/1991:231)

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It is, however, with German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) that Bergson’s discontent with this “state of affairs” culminates. Even though Bergson acknowledges Kant’s contribution to the exploration of the origin of illusions, he claims that Kantianism never escapes it but rather rests upon it (Bergson 1934/2007:50). Why does Bergson state that Kantianism still rests upon illusion? It probably has got something to do with the way real experiences and events are conditioned by a certain mathematical order, imposed upon the human understanding and through which all events and experiences must pass, reducing them to what the human intellect thinks it already knows (Bergson 1934/2007:166). In this sense and in relation to the contemporary educational situation both learning minds and material bodies become subsumed and undifferentiated by this “superorder” that à priori organizes both mind and matter so that nothing is left but the original departure point – the superorder already imposed in our mind that makes of knowledge something purely relative to human understanding and that makes of matter nothing more than that which mind forms: The whole object of the Critique of Pure Reason is, in fact, to explain how a particular order is superadded to supposedly incoherent materials. And we know what price it makes us pay for this explanation according to which the human mind imposes its form upon a ‘sensible diversity’ of unexplained origin; and the order we find in things is the order we ourselves put in them (…) The human mind is thus relegated to a corner, like a schoolboy in disgrace: it cannot turn its head around to see reality as it is. (Bergson 1934/2007:49–50, emphasis added) It may, then, be this (mis)conception of mind and matter – the overall governing by a both too relative and too rigid mental order of any sensible material – that separates us from the World and things and that relegates the human mind to the shameful corner where only illusionary and possible, but not real, realities rule. By a double idealist and realist illusionary move, the aesthetical dimension of education is neglected. Bergson speaks figuratively and by analogy about the schoolboy, but it does translate quite literally and powerfully to how abstract formalism in education relegates both children and teachers to a corner where they are not permitted “to see reality as it is”. On condition, of course, that there still is a corner standing into which they may effectively be relegated.

Individual and Society in Abstract Formalist Education: Ethical Fabulation In the contemporary educational situation, it is not only Logos and World that suffer from being badly analyzed composites. So is also the coupled relation between the Individual and Society. We are not only separated from the world and things, condemned as we are to live in an à priori super-ordered and still neglected material world, but we are also separated from each other and from ourselves. We are

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separated from each other as responsibility for education, regardless of whether institutions are administratively arranged as “private” or “public”, has been placed upon the shoulders of each individual child, pupil, student and teacher. Society has abdicated from its responsibility to create time and space for the new generations’ study and transformation of culture, values and knowledge and this produces a somewhat broken relation between individual and society. But we are also separated from ourselves forced as we are to adapt and never go beyond abstract and formal generalizations of being. Above it was stated that when the problem of being is framed and constructed on quantitative notions of quality, children, pupils, students and teachers are considered in a comparative and/or constitutive mode and as lacking certain necessary characteristics thereby existing to a lesser extent. It was also stated that when only illusion is permitted to account for educational experiences and events both mind and matter are subsumed by abstract generalizations that disgracefully relegate us to a corner of the school not permitting us to see reality as it is. The only way to exist in that corner seems to be through adapting to the specific and given identity at stake, one that is supposed to fit all but that fits none. It is as if current conceptions of children, students and teachers behave as “too baggy clothes” (Deleuze 2006:44). One-size that fits all and thereby nobody. Now, at the same time as we are asked to adapt to abstract generalizations of a given identity we are, as seen in the introduction, confusingly turned towards our “selves” through the insistence upon continuous “self-reflection” and “self-improvement”. Be individual, challenge yourself, find your way, be responsible for your own choices, maximize your own resources, be reflective not in general but in relation to yourself. In contrast to the etymological origin of reflection as a projection outward, reflection now seems purely directed inward and more specifically towards one’s thoughts about oneself. Now, one wonders where such a never-ending loop upon one’s own already abstracted, generalized, undifferentiated and “mathematical” thought may lead? It seems like a great vicious circle. With no contact with anything or anyone outside this circle mind seems deemed to reflect in eternity upon itself. Here, we seem not only to be separated from ourselves but paradoxically also destined to be only with our selves although always in accordance with what socially counts as a proper self. Following Bergson’s writings in his third and fourth major works Creative Evolution (1907/2007) and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932/1977) this confusing mix of individuality and sociability may spring from the way the intellect has evolved over time, still always keeping with it a “residue” of instinct and a tendency towards social mythmaking and fabulation. Such “semi-instinctive” mythmaking and fabulation protects the social sphere from breaking down into only individual and independent initiatives: It is because intelligence and instinct, having originally been interpenetrating, retain something of their common origin. Neither is ever found in a pure state. (Bergson 1907/2007:88)

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If intelligence now threatens to break up social cohesion at certain points – assuming that society is to go on – there must be a counterpoise, at these points, to intelligence. If this counterpoise cannot be instinct itself, for the very reason that its place has been taken by intelligence, the same effect must be produced by a virtuality of instinct, or, if you prefer it, by the residue of instinct which survives on the fringe of intelligence: it cannot exercise direct action, but, since intelligence works on representations, it will call up ‘imaginary’ ones, which will hold their own against the representation of reality and will succeed, through the agency of intelligence itself, in counteracting the work of intelligence. This would be the explanation of the myth-making faculty. (Bergson 1932/1977:119) Even though cognitive rationality as well as individual responsibility and reflectivity is so enhanced in the contemporary educational situation this still seems to belong to such “semi-instinctive” social mythmaking and fabulation. Today, the most pregnant social myth and fabulation seems to be that of the individual, responsible and self-reflective subject. In short, the social protective function of mythmaking and fabulation seems to have become hi-jacked by individualist and independent initiatives. The mode of being to which we are destined by such thought is a purely speculative existence where reflection is disconnected from real experiences and events. Here, one is no longer anxious about concrete things: the amount of homework or work to be performed, demanding chores and social encounters, but instead one is anxious about being anxious about these things. For Bergson, both Homo Faber and Homo Sapiens are respectable and tolerable, but not so Homo Loquax that concerns only the reflection upon one’s own talk (Bergson 2007/1934:67). Self-reflective thought is, then, not only beneficial, it may also constitute one of the main dangers for a society as it concerns conservative “socialisation of truth” and the “substitution of concepts for things” (Zanfi 2021:31). And it seems to be precisely this danger that is at stake in the confused socialization of disconnected individual self-reflection that appears so frequently within the contemporary educational situation. Even though Homo Loquax and disconnected individual self-reflection may be an example of the abovementioned social phenomenon of mythmaking and fabulation in contemporary education, it is also related to – and perhaps even originating from – psychological approaches to the individual. Here, Bergson, although working in close relation to the empirical and theoretical findings of psychology in his own time, has a lot to say. Bergson delivers a sharp critique of the way psychology tends to reenforce the disconnectedness of an individual through not paying attention to the whole persons “coloration” (Bergson 1934/2007:143), and by compartmentalizing individual mind and social life into ill-fitting divisions and representations: Let us now remark that psychology, when it splits up the activities of the mind into operations, does not take enough pains to find out the specific purpose of each of them. And this is precisely why the subdivision is all too

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often inadequate or artificial. Doubtless man can dream and philosophize, but first of all he must live; there is no doubt that our psychical structure originates in the necessity of preserving and developing social and individual life. If psychology does not make this consideration its guiding principle, it will inevitably distort its object. (Bergson 1977/1932:108) Such distortion is particularly actualized in attempts to account for an individual through partial and schematic reconstruction of certain psychological states thought to represent the whole person. Not unlike an artist that visits Paris and makes a sketch of Notre Dame, Bergson says, where the artist disregards the stones for the contour of the tower and thereby creates only a symbolic scheme of the real thing (Bergson 1934/2007:143). Abstract generalizations are, then, in the same way as the sketch of Notre Dame, supposed to represent our whole person. Here, Bergson attacks the epistemological offshoots of realism and idealism and states that empiricists and rationalists suffer from the same illusion and replace the whole person with symbolic psychological states (Bergson 1934/2007:144). And just as we saw in the introduction, that which is materially real, including the bodies of children, pupils, students and teachers, are here reduced to empty form (Bergson 1934/2007:146). Being reduced to fabulation of form without matter not only badly dresses and represents every one but also everyone. Moreover, it creates some serious obstacles for any kind of real relations to occur. Or, deeper still, for any relational reality to occur. Here – despite that all are supposed to fit into the same empty form – what is at stake is a broken relationality between us and the world, between us and ourselves and between us tout court. If illusion is what marks the contemporary neglect of an aesthetic problem in education, it may well be that such illusion is enhanced by fabulation and mythmaking of a social and psychological character within an ethical dimension in education. Something which is further reenforced by all social (media) arenas on which we are expected to present such fabulations of “our selves” today. Care for society, for the new generation, for each other and for ourselves here becomes subsumed by the illusion and fabulation of a “care” for us all that despite stately abdication from societal responsibility for education belongs to a stately state of mind incapable of accounting or caring for anyone or all. By yet another double move, this time empiricist and rationalist, the ethical dimension in education is neglected.

Past, Present and Future in Abstract Formalist Education: Political Retrotopication When we want to make a representation of time, we see a line in space, that is, something that doesn’t endure, something that is ready-made. It’s true that, at once, we correct ourselves; we say: It is necessary to introduce

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movement, and so we see something like a point that is moving through space. That is then what is supposed to be time. Yes, but when our thought wants to seize this movement, seize that which is in time, what happens? It never seizes anything but a position, the position of a point, and then another point and then another point and so on, always positions, never movement. Only, if what is moving has changed position, there should be between one position and the next position some kind of movement. Yes, but if we want to seize this movement, what are we going to do? We are going to place in that interval even more positions and always positions of an indefinitely increasing number, coming close to, indefinitely, the image of, or the fake image of movement, because the movement itself escapes us. We grasp the interval where we think that we will seize it like a child that grasps its hand to capture smoke, but the smoke escapes and so does the movement in between the two positions where one wanted to capture it. So, time in itself cannot be captured by thought and the symbols by which we try to express it are necessarily inadequate symbols.12 (Bergson 1904-05/2017:21–22, my translation) The third characteristic of a false problem concerns the spatialization of time that Bergson so carefully (and humorously) describes in the quote above. This characteristic is the most important of all as it also harbours and perhaps even produces the other ones: the confusion of quantity and quality as well as illusions, fabulations and undifferentiated notions of matter, mind, individuals and society. As stated by Deleuze: “All the other divisions, all the other dualisms involve it, derive from it, or result in it” (Deleuze 2006:31). How come? It is a question of time and movement. Or, rather, it is a question of neglecting movement in time and time as movement. As seen in the introduction to this chapter and in the quote from Bergson above, we seem to be incapable of seizing movement and especially uninterrupted movement in time and time as uninterrupted movement. Our thinking and our conception of time are plagued by “spatiality”, through which our perceptions pass before (human and nonhuman) subjects and objects appear in front of us. The spatial gives us only positions, dimensions and proportions, everything, therefore, appears as given and static entities (Bergson 1934/2007). Space is here considered an immobile “receptacle” where equally immobilized subjects and objects are located, and while this may be convenient both for intelligence and for many practical reasons (assumed immobility of space, subjects and objects is an indispensable asset for getting up in the morning, making coffee and getting dressed), such thinking also entails a spatialized conception of time that produces only immobilized subjects and objects and it omits that which we experience as lived time (Bergson 1934/2007:2). How is this then concretely expressed in and through the other divisions? It was scented, sensed and seen in how quantitative-qualitative confusion omits unpredictable and unexpected transformation of culture, values and knowledge

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as well as of children, pupils, students and teachers. It was scented, sensed and seen in how illusions and fabulations of mind, matter, individuals and societies leave us only with a super-ordered material world and a mind relegated to a corner as well as empty but imposing and imposed forms – sketches on a paper – and fabulations of both individuals and societies. In short, it was expressed in how education, children, pupils, students and teachers have been arrested, stopped, positioned, proportioned and dimensioned; they have become immobilized. To put it in Jankélévitch’s (1959/2015) terms: mind and world, individual and society are plagued by retrospective illusion. Theories of a child’s “development” may be the strongest example of all, as they designate and map the child’s physical and mental behaviour at different “stages” of ages; a gesture here and word there, supposed to signify and represent a particular age of a certain time. In sum, a child’s development over time is coded within retrospective illusion and the distribution of the child’s body and behaviour in space: a proper spatialization of time. The contemporary neglect of the material environment in education may be, if not the weakest, so at least the most difficult example, as one would assume spatial thinking to pay extra attention to the material and to space, which it obviously doesn’t. However, also this may be due to the assumed immobility of and in space. The immobile lifelessness that spatial thinking imposes on and in space makes of it a neglected background, a homogenous receptacle, a fond against that which is assumed essential is retrospectively staged but not aged. Bergson’s critique of spatialized time and his creative appeal to duration run through all his works. However, and as stated in the introduction to this chapter, it is important to not let this mask the specific philosophical problems that Bergson addresses, each time, in his respective works. It is not so much that duration develops from its’ “location” in the inner life of an individual in the early works to later be “implemented” in relation to the material, biological and social spheres of our existence. Each of the four major works really does address a particular philosophical problem: the first free will, the second the relation between body and mind, the third the problem of the evolution of life and the fourth the problem of morality and religion. It is, though, time, that (literally) flows through these problems, and it is duration as something distinctively different from spatialization of time that makes it possible for Bergson to criticize but also creatively reformulate these problems in relation to both science and philosophy (Worms 2013a). Duration, put very simply, is what you and I sometimes feel. It is our respective real, ongoing, and continuously changing life-process, inevitably and sometimes (even often) painfully there, insisting and pursuing, despite and sometimes against our conscious will. Every now and then, however, it is at one with our consciousness and our will; that is when we pay attention to real rather than symbolic Life, that is when we listen to “the continuous melody of our inner life, – a melody which is going on and will go on, indivisible, from the beginning to the end of our conscious existence” (Bergson 1934/2007:124). This melody is played not only in our inner life but also in the external world. This durational melody

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is time that flows through and changes not only ourselves but also the world without breaking it up in spatialized instances of “before” and “after”. And it is precisely this mobility and “indivisible continuity of change” that is suppressed when time is spatialized. It is, however, not only our thought that spatializes time and omits real and lived duration but also the way we express ourselves and the world through language. Here, both science and philosophy rely on language in ways that contribute to the confusion of time and space and the obliteration of durational and lived time (Bergson 1934/2007:4). In line with this, the neglect of the material aspects of education as it paradoxically occurs within spatial thinking may be traced to what Bauman (2017) calls “retrotopia”, and what here could be called “retrotopication”. Topication is a jargon word that indicates something like “a lot of talk on a safe and already known subject in a small amount of time in space”. Retrotopication may then indicate precisely the earlier mentioned nostalgic turn towards the past: a lot of talk and idle, but dangerous, chatter on what appears to be saving us from the cruelties of a futile future. A “safe” topic and topos where the on-going and unmerciful flow of time as transformation and change may be avoided through reducing it to “small” time and through immobilizing space as well as everyone and everything therein to well-known subjects and objects. Static essence is indeed, but not in deed the sign of retropications nostalgic yearnings. Static essence is also what contemporary critique in education seems to be all about. Despite the original meaning of critique, implying both to be able to judge and decide as well as indicating the very nature of a crisis – a decisive limit that may bring about change – (Alhadeff-Jones 2010) critique today seems to suffer from a nostalgic longing for that which does not change. Now, this is particularly visible in how anyone – even without scholarly competence in pedagogy and ECEC – seem to be able to express critique and, with great pride, suggest an endless stream of stagnated quick-fix solutions, badly adapted to current contextual, complex and relational aspects of educational questions and problems. As Bergson states: “It is a common practice to consult incompetent men on a difficult point simply because they have acquired notoriety through their competence in quite different matters” (1934/2007:66). This is what today haunts the public (and sometimes even the academic) debate on pedagogy, ECEC and early childhood teacher education (ECTE).13 The people concerned, the ones who have been trained in and studied pedagogy and ECEC, the ones who have specialized knowledge, the in ECEC and ECTE most often female scholars who have access to the reality of educational experiences and events in this specific context, are silenced in favour of “intelligent men”, supposedly more apt to pronounce themselves in the question: One encourages in them, and more especially fortifies in the public mind the idea that there exists a general faculty of knowing things without having studied them, an ‘intelligence’ which is neither simply the habit of handling in conversation the concepts useful in social life, nor the

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mathematical function of the mind, but a certain power of obtaining from social concepts the knowledge of the real by combining them more or less skilfully. This superior skill is what supposedly constitutes the superiority of the mind. As if true superiority could be anything but a greater force of attention! As if this attention was not necessarily specialized, that is to say, inclined by nature or habit toward certain objects rather than toward others! As if it was not direct vision, a vision which penetrates the veil of words, and as if it was not the very ignorance of things which gives so much facility in speaking of them! (Bergson 1934/2007:66) It would be such a wonderful and politically tremendous thing if ECEC/ECTE educators and researchers, every now and then, would proclaim: “I have not given any kind of informed consent to being part of your imperialist project of explaining, profiting from and/or using my scholarly knowledge for your own supposedly ‘higher purposes’ that clearly are inattentive, imprecise, ignorant and, ultimately, unsophisticated”. Such proclamations would, indeed, be something worth calling critique. Such critique needs to also question the intellect itself as the common conception of “intelligence” described above pertains to spatialization of time. Bergson shows how the intellect, due to its spatializing tendencies and omitting of lived and living duration, most often is incapable of accounting for real experiences and events because it creates conditions for thinking that does not fit with that which is thought about. Thought in its spatial and habitual “intelligent mode” creates “self-contained systems” that rely on abstract and general representations as substitutes for each particular thing (subjects and objects) and thereby mask and hide their very substance. Intelligence, in this mode, pretends to study things in themselves and assumes to capture the real, but as it creates only abstract generalities it proceeds only through and to nothingness (Bergson 1934/2007:190). Moreover, due to the spatialization of time that intelligent thought performs, such thought comes either too early (prospective planning), or too late (post-reflection) for real experiences and events. It is therefore incapable of harbouring that which is coming about, that is, that which is radically new and unforeseeable; it prefers to idle in a re-composition of old elements already known. In other words, thought in its “intelligent” mode is incapable of being contemporaneous with that which is coming about in educational experiences and events. It is therefore also incapable of harbouring the most prominent of features in education: the inevitable and utterly necessary creation of new culture, knowledge and values to be performed by the new generation. Retrotopical critique and “intelligent” modes of explanation of education spring from yet another badly analyzed composite – the composite of time and space. It seems we find ourselves, again, in front of yet another betrayal of education by yet another double move; when both time and space are neglected and mixed up lived time is omitted and educational experiences and events are,

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again, immobilized. As said, this is the most decisive of all characteristics of a false problem as it harbours and perhaps even provokes the other ones. Time and space are mixed up “so thoroughly that we can now only oppose their mixture to a principle that is assumed to be both nonspatial and nontemporal” (Deleuze 2006: 22). It is that principle that seems to be the very driving force of abstract formalism in contemporary education. Abstract formalism in education carries a strong odour of a false problem. Three double moves: (1) quantification of qualitative aspects of educational subjects and objects, (2) undifferentiated idealist-realist notions of mind and matter as well as empiricist-rationalist notions of individuals and societies and (3) mixed up and neglected dimensions of both time and space, make it seem almost impossible to account for any real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. Of precisely this is the contemporary global error in education composed.

Notes 1 le goût immodéré pour les faux-problèmes, les alternatives infernales, sorte de paresse de la pensée ou de bêtise (…) une désertification de tous les modes d’existence. 2 J’ai dit que le temps n’était pas de l’espace. 3 Both the notion of “tool” and the notion of “Homo Faber” need more complex reasoning, and this is being done in Chapter 2 of the present book. The argument here, however, is in line with several of Bergson’s interpreters. Alexandre Lefebvre (2015) and Keith Ansell Pearson (2020) shows how authors such as Frédéric Worms, Pierre Hadot, William James and, not the least, Vladimir Jankélévitch have interpreted Bergson first and foremost from the point of view of philosophy “as a way of life” where, for the latter, according to Lefebvre, “the great end of Bergson’s philosophy is to present a mode of living that would be more intensely present, receptive, loving, and ultimately joyful” (Lefebvre 2015: xvi, see also Ansell Pearson 2018). Even though time is used in Chapter 2 in this book as a horizon against which Bergson’s thoughts on reality, becoming and freedom occurs, it is mainly treated “as a way of life” (or the impossibility thereof ) within a political dimension of education. Apart from the fact that time throughout history has a presence in pedagogical accounts of a political dimension of education (see for instance Sundberg 2005 for an excellent overview of “time-politics” in education), and that current educational politics omit free time in educational practice and theory, there is yet another reason for joining time and politics in this way. This reason concerns the book’s placement in ECEC that to a large extent concerns children and women. For children and women in ECEC, time, and the omitting of lived time, has never been anything but political and neither children nor women needed to wait for Bergson (or any other thinker) to understand that the ontology and epistemology of time is also a question of politics. However, for the very same reason it is important to note that this book needed also other and less metaphysically inspired interpretations of Bergson’s work. Suzanne Guerlac (2006) and Alexandre Lefebvre (2015) here mention Deleuze’s Bergsonism (2006), as an interpretation that avoids the metaphysical aspects of Bergson’s work in favour of a more systematic account of the ontological rather than the psychological and subjective features of duration. Bergsonism was, in fact, my starting point, but as the work proceeded it demanded yet other interpretations. This was not in first hand due to a wish “to both have and eat the Bergsonian cake” (Lefebvre 2015:xx), but rather something spurred by a desire to account – in a precise manner – for

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the complex character of the setting in which this book takes place. Because of the placement in ECEC, there is for the abovementioned reasons certainly the need for interpretations of Bergson’s philosophy as a “way of life” and for time defined as pertaining to a political dimension in education, but there are also great risks of such interpretations. One such risk concerns a certain “romanticization” of children and childhood, as automatically (and by an age-discriminating attitude) connected to all too simplified notions of “the present here and now”, “receptivity”, “joy” and “love”. Even though these features are an essential part of ECEC, they must be qualified so that they do not hinder necessary reconceptualization of images of children, childhood and ECEC. Therefore, this book needed both kinds of interpretations. 4 L’Élan Vital is yet another concept that demand more complex reasoning. It will be dealt with more thoroughly in Chapter 2. 5 For a full account of Bergson’s intellectual biography, see further Sinclair (2020). For a fabulous account of how women’s interest and influence in Bergson’s philosophy at this time was conceived, see further Herring (2019). 6 There are also many points in common between phenomenology and Bergson’s philosophy, for a full account of this, see further Kelly (2010). 7 The “image of the child” in Bergson’s oeuvre could well present an excellent topic for a more profound study. I leave this exciting project to anyone inspired by such a task as this present book will rather be preoccupied with the ontological and metaphysical aspects of Bergson’s oeuvre in relation to education and pedagogy in general and the teacher becoming pedagogue in particular. 8 This goes also for the other continental and Western resources used in this book. Not the least Hanna Arendt’s work and the anti-blackness as well as the “moral obligation to be intelligent” and the all too conservative idea of education displayed in parts of that work (Moten 2018). Just as with Bergson, though, Arendt is here used through appealing to aspects of her work that seem to overcome its’ own limitation. In her case this concerns picking up her sharp critique of the long-inherited tendency within the history of Western philosophy to prefer that which is contemplated over that which is done (Arendt 1998/1958). The same goes for Werner Jaeger’s trilogy Paideia (1939/1945, 1943, 1944) that may have contributed to both historical and topological Eurocentrification. However, also Jaeger’s work (with a little bit of twisting) may be turned against itself through appealing to what is there displayed as a continuous and creative widening and precision of the concept of education (see also here, Glezos’ article with the fitting name: ‘Bergson contra Bergson’ (2019)). 9 Yet another sign of the current interest in Bergson’s work is visible in the lively and flourishing La Société des Amis de Bergson, a world-wide transdisciplinary society of Bergsonian scholars (https://bergson.hypotheses.org/presentation-de-la-societedes-amis-de-bergson#Histoire). 10 a reading against time 11 This is not to say that education cannot benefit from quantitative studies. It can. An urgent quantitative study to perform in education (preferably on an international and comparative level) is, for instance, one that statistically shows how many preschools and schools are located in barracks and buildings never meant to harbour any educational activities. 12 Quand nous voulons nous représenter le temps, nous voyons une ligne dans l’espace, c’est-à-dire en somme quelque chose qui ne dure pas, quelque chose de tout fait. Il est vrai que tout de suite, nous nous corrigeons; nous nous disons: Il faut introduire là le mouvement, et alors nous voyons comme un point qui se déplace dans l’espace. Ca sera alors le temps. Oui, mais quand notre pensée veut saisir ce mouvement, saisir ce qu’il y a dans le temps, qu’est-ce qui arrive? Elle ne saisit jamais qu’une position, la position d’un point puis une autre position, puis une autre position et ainsi de suite, toujours des positions, jamais le mouvement. Seulement si le mobile a changé de position, il faut bien que d’une position à la position suivante au moins il y ait eu du

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mouvement. Oui, mais si nous voulons saisir ce mouvement, ce passage d’une position à une autre, qu’est-ce que nous allons faire? Nous allons mettre dans l’intervalle considéré encore des positions et toujours des positions d’un nombre indéfiniment croissant, se rapprochant, semble-t-il, indéfiniment de l’image ou de la contrefaçon du mouvement, car le mouvement lui-même nous échappe. Nous resserrons l’intervalle ou nous croyons le saisir, comme un enfant serre la main pour capter la fumée, mais la fumée s’échappe et le mouvement aussi entre les deux positions entre lesquelles on voulait le capter. Donc le temps lui-même nous ne pouvons pas le saisir par la pensée, et les symboles par lesquels nous l’exprimons sont nécessairement des symboles inadéquates. 13 This abbreviation is from here on used throughout the book.

References Alhadeff-Jones, M. (2010) Challenging the limits of critique in education through Morin’s paradigm of complexity, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29 (5), 477–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-010-9193-8 Ansell Pearson, K. (2018) Bergson: Thinking beyond the human condition. London: Bloomsbury. Ansell Pearson, K. (2020) Bergson and philosophy as a way of life, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott Interpreting Bergson: Critical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Ansell Pearson, K. and Maoilearca, K. (2014) Henri Bergson: Key writings. London: Bloomsbury. Arendt, H. (1958/1998) The human condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Baumann, S. (2017) Retrotopia. Malden, MA: Polity. Bergson, H. (1889/2013) Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Oxfordshire and New York: Routledge. Bergson, H. (1896/1991) Matter and memory. New York: Zone Books. Bergson, H. (1907/2007) Creative evolution. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bergson, H. (1932/1977) The two sources of morality and religion. Notre Dame Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. Bergson, H. (1934/2007) The creative mind: An introduction to metaphysics. New York: Dover publications. Bergson, H. (1904–1905/2017) L’Évolution du problème de la liberté. Cours au Collège de France 1904–1905. Paris: PUF. Canales, J. (2015) The physicist and the philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the debate that changed our understanding of time. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Dahlberg, G., Moss, P. and Pence, A. (2013, 3rd ed.). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. London: Routledge. Davies, B. (2014) Listening to children: Being and becoming. London: Routledge. Debaise, D. and Stengers, I. (2016) L’insistance des possibles. Pour un pragmatisme spéculatif. Multitudes, 65(4). https://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2016-4-page82.htm de Freitas, E. and Ferrara, F. (2015) Movement, memory and mathematics: Henri Bergson and the ontology of learning, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 34 (6), 565–585. DOI: 10.1007/s11217-014-9455-y. Deleuze, G. (2006) Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books. Foucault, M. (1984) Preface, in G. Deleuze and F. Guattari Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & schizophrenia. London: The Athlone Press. Glezos, S. (2019) Bergson contra Bergson: Race and morality in the two sources, European Journal of Political Theory, 20 (4), 761–781. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474885119834760

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Grosz, E. (2004) The nick of time: Politics, evolution and the untimely. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Grosz, E. (2005) Bergson, Deleuze and the becoming of unbecoming, Parallax, 11 (2) 4–13. DOI: 10.1080/13534640500058434 Guerlac, S. (2006) Thinking in time: An introduction to Henri Bergson. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Herring, E. (2019) Henri Bergson, celebrity. https://aeon.co/essays/henri-bergson-thephilosopher-damned-for-his-female-fans [2022-04-30] Jankélévitch, V. (1959/2015) Henri Bergson, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott Henri Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Kelly, M. R. (2010) Bergson and phenomenology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lawlor, L. (2010) Intuition and duration: An introduction to Bergson’s ‘Introduction to Metaphysics’, in M. R. Kelly Bergson and phenomenology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lefebvre, A. (2015) Jankélévitch on Bergson: Living in time, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott Henri Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Lefebvre, A. and White, M. (eds) (2012) Bergson, politics and religion. Durham: Duke University Press. Lefebvre, A. and Schott, N. F. (eds) (2020) Interpreting Bergson: Critical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lombard, J. (1997) Bergson: Création et éducation. Paris: Éditions l’Harmattan. Masschelein, J. and Simons, M. (2013) In defence of the school: A public issue. Leuven: E-ducation Culture and Society Publishers. Melo, D. (2019) Notes towards a pedagogy of movement: On will and education in Henri Bergson, Educacao et Realidade, 44 (1), 1–14. DOI: 10.1590/2175-623677417 Mossé-Bastide, R.-M. (1955) Bergson éducateur. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France. Moten, F. (2018) The universal machine. Durham: Duke University Press. Pitts, A. J. and Westmoreland, M. W. (eds) (2019) Beyond Bergson: Examining race and colonialism through the writings of Henri Bergson. Albany NY: State University of New York Press. Roberts, P. and Saeverot, H. (2018) Education and the limits of reason – Reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov. London and New York: Routledge. Rose, N. and Abi-Rached, J. (2013) Neuro: The new brains sciences and the management of the mind. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Roy, K. (2005a) An untimely intuition: Adding a Bergsonian dimension to experience and education, Educational Theory, 55 (4), 443–459. DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2005.00005.x. Roy, K. (2019) Teachers and teaching: Time and the creative tension. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sinclair, M. (2020) Bergson. London and New York: Routledge. Sommer MacGrath, L. (2020) Making spirit matter: Neurology, psychology and selfhood in modern France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sundberg, D. (2005) Skolreformernas dilemman: en läroplansteoretisk studie av kampen om tid i den svenska obligatoriska skolan. Diss. Växjö: Växjö University Press. Vandenbroeck, M., DeVos, J., Fias, W., Olsson, L. M., Penn, H., Wastell, D. and White, S. (2017) Constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Worms, F. (2009) La philosophie en France au xxe siècle. Paris: Éditions Gallimard. Worms, F. (2013a) Bergson ou les deux sens de la vie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Worms, F. (2019a) Henri Bergson expliqué par Frédéric Worms. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lF9dA8_WXWo&list=OLAK5uy_kEbn4W9UsNMdejYN7aMz75-bkNWryAUXo [2022-04-30] Zanfi, C. (2020) Bergson La pensée et le mouvant: Introduction (première et deuxième parties). Paris: Éditions Desclée de Brouwer.

2 PROBLEMS WITH FREEDOM

There Are Always Two Sides to Every Story and to Everything Abstract formalism has a problem with freedom. What it aims at is a reduction of freedom. As if freedom was a state that threatens its’ very foundation. It probably does. Anything that in the name of freedom escapes quantification, undifferentiation and spatialization of educational experiences and events really does threaten to annihilate abstract formalism. Which is then the most fruitful way to confront such domestication of education? Apparently, the long-standing and rich critique of all too bureaucratic and rigid governance of education as well as pertinent claims of freedom offered by educational scholars have not had much effect. Moreover, critique, as seen in the last chapter, takes us only so far. In fact, at a certain point when freedom, often dressed (in higher education and research) in terms of one’s “academic liberty” (and ironically often without regard to the ones most concerned: children, pupils and students) is positioned as the opposite of the educational task, an error perhaps greater than the one committed in the name of abstract formalism occurs. Then everything starts working counter-productively and at the same time as curriculums, course plans and careful constructive alignment of learning and teaching activities are thrown out the window, so is the entire educational task and particularly its obligation to through such tools (amongst other things) attempt to create just and equal education for all. Here, no matter how salient the critique posed by “academic libertarians” may be, it paradoxically begins to transform into the very image of that which is criticized: the individual and economic subject that disregards the educational task of working for the common good and the creation of common goods. The only thing left is a spoilt subject of academia, filled with ressentiment and disconnected from both societal analysis DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-4

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and social responsibility. Why not instead go full steam ahead and launch yet another privatized educational institution? The door is wide-open, and the market is waiting just for you. The “thoughtlessness” that is visible in abstract formalism (Greene 1998/2018), then, does not ameliorate in critique that opposes freedom to the educational task. Quite contrary such critique displays an even more serious lack of thought as it entails disqualification of the educational task and stays well within the limits, even reinforces, that which the critique intended to address. Now, if the launching of yet another privatized educational initiative is not an option, how then to proceed? First of all, here there might indeed and in deed be need for the story just told in the introduction and the first chapter of this book to be rendered more complex and complete. As the saying goes: there are always two sides to every story and to everything and perhaps therein lays a potential much richer than counterproductive academic libertarian critique. That there are always two sides to every story and to everything is particularly clear with the main philosophical protagonist in the present book, Henri Bergson, who displays an almost obsessive interest in dualisms, evidenced not the least in the titles of his works: “Even the running heads that Bergson puts at the top of each page of his books indicate his taste for dualisms” (Deleuze 2006:21–22). Bergson begins Matter and Memory (1896/1991) through stating that the book is “frankly dualistic” but also that he hopes “to lessen greatly, if not to overcome, the theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism” (Bergson 1896/1991:9). For Bergson, then, even though he builds his entire work on the acknowledgement and stating of dualisms, these do not “have the last word in his philosophy” (Deleuze 2006:22). It is rather a question of proliferating these to first see them and then to discover their mutual reversibility, interdependency and even interpenetration. As stated by Elizabeth Grosz: It is no longer a question of ‘undoing’ binary terms even temporarily, of freeing up the subordinated term in an oppositional or dualistic structure, for dualisms cannot be resolved either through monism, which involves the reduction of the two terms to one, or through the addition of extra terms – as if three or four terms would somehow overcome the constraint of the two (or the one, for the two binary terms are commonly translatable into a single term and its negation). It is only the proliferation of dualisms, and their capacity for infinite reversal that reveals the stratum, the field on which they are grounded, which is the real object of both Deleuze’s and Bergson’s explorations. (Grosz 2005:6) It is perhaps in the final of Bergson’s major works The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1977/1932) that it becomes fully clear that this treatment of dualisms is of a fundamentally critical and vital ethical character (Worms 2015, 2019a). Even to the point that it may concern, as Bergson dramatically states by the end of the book,

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a question of whether we “want to go on living or not” (1932/1977:317). Less dramatically put, and in relation to the present book, it concerns a value-based question of which kind of approach to adopt in front of the bleak situation that abstract formalism has created in education. If recognizing that critique also runs the risk of falling into reproductive retrospection and if wanting to engage also in vital processes of contemporary education, then, how to proceed? The treatment of dualisms throughout Bergson’s work, but particularly in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932/1977), does present an invitation to a different way of proceeding. This would concern taking stock of the very reversibility and interpenetration of each “side” in apparent dualisms. In the case of morality and religion the two “sides” or, better, sources, Bergson refers to are the open and the closed where the first would imply habits and societal modes and functions marked by an all-embracing attitude without any borders and exclusion of “other ways” as well as “others”. The second, on the contrary, would be marked by habits and societal modes and functions busy with erecting mental, moral as well as social and geographical borders separating “good” from “bad” and “us” from the “others” (the latter being explicitly treated by Bergson as leading to war between groups and societies) (Bergson 1932/1977). However, and perhaps particularly in the contemporary situation, it is of utmost importance to note that this should not be understood as there being some religions and some moral traditions that are of an “open” character and others that are of a “closed” character. Quite on the contrary, each religion and each morality carries with it both open and closed tendencies. This is the very thesis of the book, reflected in the title, but only if understood in this precise manner (Worms 2013a:265–266). Furthermore, notions of the open and the closed pertain predominantly to a certain way of proceeding and an approach to adopt for being able to distinguish between the two tendencies in any morality, religion, habit and societal mode or function (ibid). This may be the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to approach the contemporary educational situation in a different way than solely through critique. The critique of abstract formalism so far presented is directed towards the tendencies of closure in contemporary education and this now needs to be complemented through a methodological approach capable of also addressing and enhancing tendencies of openness in education. It is here, as Frédéric Worms (2005) concludes on the “doubleness” of Bergson’s philosophy, of utmost importance to recognize that neither duration nor intuition may be entirely separated from its apparent opposites: Indeed, the main turning-point in the whole of Bergson’s philosophy, which we have, of necessity, gone through in what precedes this conclusion, is this: the point, in Creative Evolution, Chapter 3, where duration, whether in us or in the world, experiences its own limit or finitude, and has to revert to its own opposite. This is the reason why, in our mind, we have to leave the pure intuition of time and, by all means, resort to

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human intelligence, language, concepts; and why, in the evolution of life, the “elan vital” itself finds its highest success (do not be mistaken on this point!) in human intelligence, language, logic, and technique! (Worms 2005:1233) Following this and in what follows it is important to already here state that “alternative” and “open” conceptions of real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events presented below are not introduced as final and excluding “better alternatives” to what we have seen so far. As if steering away from intelligence, language, logic, concepts and techniques – appealing instead to intuition, action, fluidity and resistance towards any kind of technicality – would do the trick in the current educational situation. Rather, and this will be most clearly posited by the end of this chapter, there is a need to consider how we may exist and navigate this “double condition” of ourselves and the world. In the current educational situation, though, not only freedom but also most other alternatives to abstract formalism are suppressed. Therefore, such alternatives really do need to be visualized at the same time as, clearly, a critical perspective on the current educational situation is not enough. This implies that the methodology that until now has driven this book must be altered so that it performs both critique and creation. Below both alternative conceptions and an altered methodology are presented.

A Method with Two Sides and Three Rules In the first chapter of the present book an attempt was made to make use of Bergson’s method of intuition in a critical consideration of the global error and false problem of abstract formalism that haunts education on all levels today. According to Deleuze (2006), it is of utmost importance to distinguish Bergson’s use of the term “intuition” from how we normally consider it as a somewhat vague “feeling” or “anticipation”. Bergson’s method is as Deleuze states: “a fully developed method, one of the most fully developed methods in philosophy. It has its strict rules, constituting that which Bergson calls ‘precision’ in philosophy” (Deleuze 2006:13).1 These rules concern a process where one proceeds through problematizing, differentiating and temporalizing (Deleuze 2006). In Chapter 1, the three rules were used in relation to the contemporary educational situation by (1) problematizing abstract formalism as a false problem through exposing its’ quantification of qualitative aspects of knowledge and being in education, (2) differentiating through displaying how abstract formalism produces undifferentiated notions and aesthetical illusions of mind and matter as well as ethical fabulations of the individual and society in education and (3) temporalizing by unravelling how abstract formalism through political “intelligent” and “linguistic” retrospective critique mixes up and neglects time and space and therefore immobilizes education as well as the subjects and objects therein engaged.

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Following such a process and procedure should not be understood as an obedient application of stagnated intellectual rules but neither as indulgence in ideological opposition to intellectual understanding. On the contrary, intuition is a method for developing understanding in a more “articulated” way, and it begins with a “negative phase” of identifying false problems: Despite persistent misunderstanding, intuition is not a short-cut or a process of divination that would set aside the work of understanding, but it is rather a central effort in a more articulated work, which begins first with a negative phase consisting in setting aside false problems in philosophy.2 (Zanfi 2020:20–21, my translation) Even though this was attempted in the first chapter of this book and although the rules were activated in their proper verb-form, it all proceeded as if the method was purely analytical and critical. In that sense, only one half of the method was deployed. Method, according to Bergson, does indeed contain two sides, or ­better, two phases, which in turn correspond to his idea that there are two different ways of knowing a thing: through analysis of a thing and through intuitive sympathy with a thing (Bergson 1934/2007:135–136). But in the sense of “doubleness” evoked above intuition seems to harbour a secret; it may not only constitute the opposition of analysis. It may even be the case that analysis too is built upon or at least harbours moments of intuition.3 As stated by French philosopher Arnaud Francois, intuition concerns both “going back over” and perceiving; it is both a “seeing” and a “making”: “Bergsonian intuition, first of all, is certainly a viewing, a ‘seeing’, but it is also a certain kind of ‘making,’ also in its own way, a creation.” (Francois 2020:24) To fully engage in the method of intuition and to follow Bergson in his reversal of dualisms, the three rules must therefore also be formulated in a more sympathetic and direct way as: (1) problematizing through creating problems, 2) differentiating through converging differences and (3) temporalizing through thinking in duration (Deleuze 2006:14). Moreover, the question of whether there are “alternative” notions of “real”, “becoming” and “freedom” within Bergson’s oeuvre needs to be addressed. It is true that up until now in this book little has been said of what real, becoming and free educational experiences and events may imply from a Bergsonian perspective; that which was said concerned mostly their negative absence: what they are not. Now it has become necessary to address an “alternative” notion of these. In the account of this below, these “alternative” notions and the method is presented simultaneously. This is due to how Bergson’s method of intuition cannot be disconnected from its ontological and epistemological premises nor from the ambition to question and even go beyond these. The method must unfold

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simultaneously with the attempt to stretch beyond existing epistemological and ontological conditions: Bergson’s philosophy is one of the rare philosophies in which the investigation’s theory blends with the investigation itself (…) there is no method substantially and consciously distinct from the meditation of its objects. Instead, the method is immanent to this meditation whose general figure, as it were, it traces out. ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:3) Or, as sharply and substantially stated by Italian philosopher Caterina Zanfi: To conclude, the central intuition of bergsonism is elevated to a generative principle of both his doctrine and his method.4 (Zanfi 2020:19, my translation) In what follows, then, intuition is treated both as a method through the approach of (1) creating problems, (2) converging differences, (3) thinking in duration and as something that underlies and provokes Bergson’s “alternative” notions of real, becoming and freedom.

Creating Problems: Two Ways of (Knowing) Reality If the false problem of abstract formalism carries with it a profound doubt and even disinterest in real educational experiences and events, it might be said that Bergson’s work is all about directly addressing and offering an “alternative” to such doubt. However, it is against the grain of Western philosophy and science that Bergson’s call for real goes. Bergson begins The Creative Mind (1934/2007) as follows: What philosophy has lacked most of all is precision. Philosophical systems are not cut to the measure of reality in which we live; they are too wide for reality. (Bergson/1934/2007:1) Philosophy is, then, by Bergson considered as incapable of precision when facing reality. A somewhat provocative idea as precision is often what philosophers claim to be good at. Science, on the other hand, does not escape Bergson’s criticism either as he claims that it most often (and particularly the positivist science of his own time) commits to an error of retaining only that which can be calculated, measured and repeated but not that which one lives (Bergson 1934/2007:3). In this sense if philosophical systems are too wide for reality, scientific ones are too narrow. Add to this the earlier mentioned Bergsonian critique of the Kantian relativity of knowledge that leaves us only with possible but not real experiences

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and events, and it becomes clear that both philosophy and science often dwell in spheres of representation that are too abstract and too general for the real. That the question of real experiences and events and how to know these stands in the centre of Bergson’s endeavour is of course not surprising – this is the case for many if not all philosophers (if they’re any good at all). However, and particularly when considering that problems are created, philosophers obviously approach and formulate the problem of real in different ways. The specificity of Bergson’s effort to address the real consists in his attempt to do so considering that real experiences and events are temporal while our intelligence and our thought tend towards spatialization. The central problem for Bergson is, then, “the capacity of human thought, that is mainly spatial, to reach the real, which is mainly temporal”5 (Worms 2020:170, my translation). Even though this temporal quest for real runs through all of Bergson’s works it is perhaps in the study of the evolution of Life in Creative Evolution (1907/2007) that it is given its most explicit and precise form. Bergson here not only seeks to trace the origin of a certain distance between reality and scientifical and philosophical knowledge but also draws up the outline of how this could be overcome (Worms 2013a:170). It is an astonishing and convincing piece of argumentation that confronts the reader of this book. This is especially due to the empirical investigations that mark the first two chapters; the study of Life is performed not mainly through conceptualizing Life, but through empirically studying the concrete biological evolution of Life on the planet. The main thesis is this: the evolution of Life on the planet is what generates and transgresses the human intellect and understanding (Worms 2013a:168). This is a short empirical fact that has far-reaching metaphysical consequences. This fact and its consequences are explored by Bergson throughout the book. It all begins with an opening argument concerning how human intelligence in its biological development is directed towards matter: “We shall see that the human intellect feels at home among inanimate objects, more specifically among solids, where our action finds its fulcrum and our industry its tools; that our concepts have been formed on the model of solids” (Bergson 1907/2007:xxxv). This is followed by a strong statement showing that the human intellect, therefore, fails to account for the real and true nature of Life as an evolutionary movement, particularly as it also is from this very movement that the human intellect is born: But from this it must also follow that our thought, in its purely logical form, is incapable of presenting the true nature of life, the full meaning of the evolutionary movement. Created by life, in definite circumstances, to act on definite things, how can it embrace life, of which it is only an emanation or an aspect? (Bergson 1907/2007:xxxv) Already here in the very beginning of the book the spatialization of time, expressed in the human intellect’s preference for and limitation to “the solid”,

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is identified as an empirical fact as well as a critical question in the study of Life. Already here the counter-act to the spatialization of time, duration, is introduced and described as “the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances” (Bergson 1907/2007:3). Already here we get a glimpse of the very sense of the title of the book and of how evolution is going to be treated: The universe endures. The more we study the nature of time, the more we shall comprehend that duration means invention, the creation of forms, the continual elaboration of the absolutely new. (Bergson 1907/2007:7, original emphasis) It is lack of endurance, duration, invention, creation, and elaboration of the new that spurs the critique that Bergson delivers towards the, at the time, existing theories of evolution gathered under two main directions: “mechanism” (Darwinism) and “finalism” (Lamarckism).6 Bergson shows how they both build upon a preference for the spatial and that they omit the durational and unpredictable invention and creation through which evolution occurs. Bergson does in no way simply contradict either mechanism or finalism. In relation to mechanism, he does not contest “that outer circumstances are forces evolution must reckon with” (Bergson 1907/2007:66). He contests, however, that these are the causes of evolution and the various life-forms that have occurred within the evolutionary movement: The truth is that adaptation explains the sinuosities of the movement of evolution, but not its general directions, still less the movement itself. The road that leads to the town is obliged to follow the ups and downs of the hills; it adapts itself to the accidents of the ground; but the accidents of the ground are not the cause of the road, nor have they given it its direction. (Bergson 1907/2007:66–67, original emphasis) Even though outer circumstances play a role in the evolution of individuals and species they do not cause Life to evolve. Moreover, “evolution does not mark out a solitary route”, “it takes directions without aiming at ends”, and “it remains inventive even in its adaptations” (ibid:67). The metaphorical example given with the road that leads to town shows how it is only retrospectively that the accidents of the ground may be considered the cause of the road. It is from an idea of past-oriented irreversibility that such causes are made to explain the evolution of Life, implying the postulate that all is retrospectively given: The mechanistic explanations, we said, hold good for the systems that our thought artificially detaches from the whole. But of the whole itself and of systems which, within this whole, seem to take after it, we cannot admit a priori that they are mechanically explicable, for then time would be useless, and even unreal. The essence of mechanical explanation, in fact, is to

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regard the future and the past as calculable functions of the present, and thus to claim that all is given. (Bergson 1907/2007:24, original emphasis) This, then, is the main critique and alternative that Bergson puts forward against mechanism, but in a certain sense, it holds although a bit differently also for the critique that Bergson delivers towards finalism. The critique here concerns the opposite direction and a finalist future-oriented transcendence expressed in the idea of a realization of a programme where just as with mechanism “the same causes produce the same effects” (Bergson 1907/2007:36). Finalism, then, is marked by pretensions to predict in the present that which will come, implying the postulate that all is prospectively given: But radical finalism is quite as unacceptable, and for the same reason. The doctrine of teleology, in its extreme form (…) implies that things and beings merely realize a programme previously arranged. But if there is nothing unforeseen, no invention or creation in the universe, time is useless again. As in the mechanic hypothesis, here again it is supposed that all is given. (Bergson 1907/2007:25, original emphasis) Whether evolution is lit up by directing light towards the “impulsion” of the past or pointing it towards the “attraction” of the future, the present here constitutes the “timeless” spot from which evolution comes forward as given and predictable, and both these positions are equally unsatisfactory (Bergson 1907/2007:26). Bergson, however, comes closer to finalism than mechanism as he recognizes that there might be a certain finality pertaining to the “whole” to which evolution belongs. Though, this “whole” is far less harmonious than what is postulated within finalism: the evolution of individuals and species does not progress indefinitely; there are also some species and individuals that are arrested or that deviate in their evolution. It is therefore not possible to assign a completely coherent and given plan to the course of the whole of evolution, due to the empirical fact that “all is not coherent in nature” (Bergson 1907/2007:68).7 The evolution of Life takes place neither through retrospectively explained mechanical causes that always produce the same effects nor through prospective causal and finalist programmes that produce always foreseeable ends. Evolution cannot be only retrospectively explained through external circumstances mechanically causing the life of individuals and species to evolve, but no more can it be only prospectively explained as a pre-given plan that will cause them to evolve and occur in predetermined ways in the future. Neither can it be fully explained through an all too harmonious idea of a “whole”. Rather, and with respect both to a certain “adaptation” to external circumstances and to a certain finality of the “whole”, evolution may be seen as an ongoing process of “self-creation” – a process that concerns as much the nature and matter of Life itself as our intellectual understanding of it:

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[E]volution is a creation unceasingly renewed, it creates, as it goes on, not only the forms of life, but the ideas that will enable the intellect to understand it, the terms which will serve to express it. (Bergson 1907/2007:67) Such ongoing “self-creation” occurs through an “unstable balance” of tendencies that Life harbours in itself as well as through the resistance Life encounters from inert matter: [The] evolution movement would be a simple one, and we should soon have been able to determine its direction, if life had described a single course, like that of a solid ball shot from a cannon. But it proceeds rather like a shell, which suddenly bursts into fragments, which fragments, being themselves shells, burst in their turn into fragments destined to burst again, and so on for a time incommensurably long. We perceive only what is nearest to us, namely the scattered movements of the pulverized explosions. From them we have to back, stage by stage, to the original movement. When a shell bursts, the particular way it breaks is explained both by the explosive force of the powder it contains and by the resistance of the metal. So of the way life breaks into individual and species. It depends, we think, on two series of causes: the resistance life meets from inert matter, and the explosive force – due to an unstable balance of tendencies – which life bears within itself. (Bergson 1907/2007:64) Life and the evolution of life on the planet has taken shape through such “bursting into fragments” along two main diverging lines: that of the plant and that of the animal. The first line tending towards unconsciousness and immobility, the second towards consciousness and mobility (if so only by the fact that the animal could not produce its own “food” in the same way as the plant that absorbs light, liquid and minerals in situ – it had to mobilize itself to go looking for nourishment elsewhere). These lines both evolve through encountering and acting upon the obstacle of matter; in order for Life to evolve on the planet there was a need to develop qualities and properties capable of encountering the resistance of inert matter through transforming itself as well as the environment into more and more functional and refined modes (for instance, the animal-line that develops from the earliest forms of organisms into more and more refined means of movement to be able to nourish itself, to fabricate tools to nourish itself etc.). Moreover, and importantly, these lines, even though diverging, are, by Bergson considered as interpenetrating “tendencies” rather than as separate states: “The elements of a tendency are not like objects set beside each other in space and mutually exclusive, but rather like psychic states, each of which, although it be itself to begin with, yet partakes of others, and so virtually includes in itself the whole personality to which it belongs” (Bergson 1907/2007:77). As these lines

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have evolved over the course of the evolution both have divided and diverged yet again (the animal line all the way up to the human being) while keeping something of their common origin: Now, it seems to us most probable that the animal cell and the vegetable cell are derived from a common stock, and that the first living organisms oscillated between the vegetable and the animal form, participating in both at once. Indeed, we have just seen that the characteristic tendencies of the evolution of the two kingdoms, although divergent, coexist even now, both in the plant and in the animal. The proportion alone differs. (Bergson 2007/1907:73) But what caused such “bursting into fragments” and divergent divisions in the evolutionary movement to come about; which is the “original movement” that Bergson refers to? This audacious question is what Bergson tries to navigate midway between mechanism and finalism through evoking the famous concept of the vital impetus – l’élan vital – an initial act and effort that in the encounter with the obstacles of inert matter generates Life and propels it into further divisions and variations. L´élan vital/The vital impetus is the hypothesis that Bergson presents of a profound cause and excessive creation of divergent variations of life-forms in duration and over long time, although each time actualizing the specific tendencies to transform that each life-form carries within it (Bergson 1907/2007:57; Worms 2013b:34; Grosz 2004:201). Duration, “the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances” (Bergson 1907/2007:3), is what continues this cause and creation in ourselves and in the world. In contrast to quantitative and spatialized notions of time duration concerns the qualitative movements through which Life and matter evolves. Matter and Life are, in fact, ( just as the plant and the animal) intermingling tendencies: also matter carries a tendency of durational life – it is not only and completely inert and, just like Life, it is marked by its continuous transformation and change. Matter is not only and completely solid – there are qualities and qualitative movements not only in durational life but also in matter itself: From our first glance at the world, before we even make out bodies in it, we distinguish qualities. Colour succeeds to colour, sound to sound, resistance to resistance, etc. Each of these qualities, taken separately, is a state that seems to persist as such, immovable until another replaces it. Yet each of these qualities resolves itself, on analysis, into an enormous number of elementary movements. Whether we see in it vibrations or whether we represent it in any other way, one fact is certain, it is that every quality is change (…) In the smallest discernible fraction of a second, in the almost instantaneous perception of a sensible quality, there may be trillions of oscillations which repeat themselves. The permanence of a sensible quality

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consists in this repetition of movements, as the persistence of life consists in a series of palpitations. (Bergson 1907/2007:192, original emphasis) The vital impetus and the divisions and diverging lines along which Life evolves are, then, far from resembling a single course of a solid cannonball in a progressive evolutionary movement forward from one “simple” state and life-form to other and more “developed” ones. Evolution is rather marked by constant intermingling, interruption and even decay – a durational process within which we and the world act and age in concert. In short, a process within which we and the world dure and endure. This duration and endurance, is, perhaps more than anything else marked by Life’s hesitation to take shape in the encounter with and action upon matter: There are numerous cases in which nature seems to hesitate between the two forms, and to ask herself if she shall make a society or an individual. (Bergson 1907/2007:167) Hesitation, though, is not a passive (nor depressive) act – it constitutes the very beginning of the act of creation, and it is thus that the evolutionary movement proceeds. Bergson’s book on the evolution of Life is performed in a truly creative problematizing mode. Not only does Bergson formulate the problem of the evolution of Life in a revolutionary creative way, but he formulates Life as a creative response to the problem of how to live in a world of resistant matter: Life in this sense, is the response to the matter that gives it life and sustains it as such. Life is not an adaptation to the external environment, a giving into or conceding of the primacy of the environment, a passivity in the face of its activity. Rather, for Bergson, life is a response, a reply, to the problem of how to live in a material world and to use its resources. (Grosz 2004:211) This revolutionary creative account of evolution and Life concerns not only the “external world” but also our “inner lives”. Not only does Bergson display the limits in intellectual ways of understanding evolution, but he also puts in play a different account of evolution to discover how intelligence itself is part of this evolutionary movement. The effort is double and concerns a new intellectual understanding of evolution that performs a genesis that goes from evolution to creation, but also, and in the other direction, from creation to evolution and to the genesis of the intellect itself: It is this duality that allows and imposes not only to go beyond intelligence to access evolution as creation, but a genesis, to go from creation to evolution and to intelligence itself.8 (Worms 2013a:175, original emphasis, my translation)

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In that genesis what was already remarked of the “intermingling” of tendencies in the plant-line and the animal-line also goes for yet further diverging directions on the animal-line into on the one hand, intelligence, and the other, instinct. Intelligence and instinct are nevertheless “two different methods of action on inert matter” (Bergson 1907/2007:89), the latter acting directly through a natural instrument inherent to it (such as functional and useful parts of an insect’s body), the former through manufacturing tools (such as human inventions of these), and they are also “two divergent solutions, equally fitting, of one and the same problem” (Bergson 1907/2007:93, original emphasis): “the problem of how to live in a material world and to use its resources” (Grosz 2004:211). These are clearly diverging and different solutions and tendencies, but they still keep something of their common origin that complement rather than contradict each other: The two tendencies – that of the plant and the animal – were so thoroughly interpenetrating, to being with, that there has never been a complete severance between them: they haunt each other continually; everywhere we find them mingled; it is the proportion that differs. So with intelligence and instinct. There is no intelligence in which some traces of instinct are not to be discovered, more especially no instinct that is not surrounded with a fringe of intelligence (…) In reality, they accompany each other only because they are complementary, and they are complementary only because they are different, what is instinctive in instinct being opposite to what is intelligent in intelligence. (Bergson 1907/2007:88) Although intermingling, instinct and intelligence also imply “two radically different kinds of knowledge” (Bergson 1907/2007:93) where in the former knowledge is acted and unconscious whereas in the latter knowledge is thought and conscious (Bergson 1907/2007:94). Bergson joins, then, not only the two lines and ways along which life and intellect have developed in the evolutionary movement but also the two ways we may know these. This redoubling of the double empirical feature of the “external world” and our “inner life” is the reason for why a theory of life and a theory of knowledge should not be entirely separated (Bergson 1907/2007:xxxvii). It is this endeavour that Creative Evolution (1907/2007) undertakes: A theory of life that is not accompanied by a criticism of knowledge is obliged to accept, as they stand, the concepts which the understanding puts at its disposal: it can but enclose the facts, willing or not, in pre-existing frames which it regards as ultimate. It thus obtains a symbolism which is convenient, perhaps even necessary to positive science, but not a direct vision of its object. On the other hand, a theory of knowledge which does not replace the intellect in the general evolution of life will teach us neither how the frames of knowledge have been constructed nor how we can

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enlarge or go beyond them. It is necessary that these two inquiries, theory of knowledge and theory of life, should join each other, and, by a circular process, push each other on unceasingly. Together, they may solve by a method more sure, brought nearer to experience, the great problems that philosophy poses. (Bergson 1907/2007:xxxvii) And that method is precisely the method of intuition. The method attempts to reunite the two ways that life tends to make itself: through instinctively acting directly on matter, and through intelligently fabricating tools, but also the two ways we may know reality: through instinctive sympathetic engagement and through intelligent abstraction and generalization. Intuition, even though more closely affiliated with instinct, is “the orientation of the rudiments of instinct with the insights of intelligence, no longer directed to a single or given practical end, but for its own sake” (Grosz 2004:234). It is “instinct that has become disinterested, self-conscious, capable of reflecting upon its object and of enlarging it indefinitely” (Bergson 1907/2007:114). Bergson defines intuition as “immediate consciousness”, that is, a consciousness immediately coinciding with that which is experienced. There is nothing “mysterious” with such immediate consciousness. Quite contrary, it is activated in our every day habitual experiences and events, although we do not always pay attention to it. Bergson gives an example of the somnambulist that as soon as hitting an obstacle regains consciousness – the act of walking in sleep neutralizes or keeps the conscious representation of the act “in check”; the act “fills the representation”. Consciousness is then this very distance between act and conscious representation, or “the inadequacy of act to representation” (Bergson 1907/2007:93). And it is also this very distance that makes consciousness, just like Life in general, hesitate: If we examine this point more closely, we shall find that consciousness is the light that plays around the zone of possible actions or potential activity which surrounds the action really performed by the living being. It signifies hesitation or choice. (Bergson 1907/2007:93) It is in Bergson’s final book The Creative Mind (1934/2007) that intuition is presented most clearly as a method, a method that takes stock of the durational and mobile features of both human beings and the material world. Intuition is here most clearly described as belonging to duration – thinking intuitively consists of thinking in duration. Attention is here therefore turned more directly to that which continuously changes and transforms, which, in this last book, is made the very essence of reality. Intuition, then, concerns and is concerned with the profoundly duration-impregnated creative, continuously changing and qualitatively transforming aspects of our own and the world’s real existence. Intuition

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as a method attempts to join the two ways of (knowing) the real to be precise in its dealing with such a continuously changing and transformative reality. Bergson’s account of the evolutionary movement of Life (in the wide sense of “us” and the world”) and of intuition, does have some potential resonances with educational practice and theory. The arguments accounted for above may be prolonged into the educational sphere, creating not only philosophical “alternatives” but also “alternatives” in the contemporary educational situation. In principle, the word evolution could in the above account and on almost all occasions be replaced by the word education. Below, and in relation to what has been said above, some conclusions of what all this may mean for education are presented. •

•

The account of the two ways of (knowing) reality presented above may both clarify and challenge what is at stake in the contemporary educational situation. It may clarify that contemporary education and abstract formalism pertain to only one of the ways of (knowing) reality: the spatialized, solid and intelligent way. Even though this way is of both practical and theoretical importance in education, it may be challenged as it hides the empirical fact that there is another way of (knowing) reality: the instinctive, sympathetic and engaged way. These two ways of (knowing) reality are different, but not entirely separated – they are intermingling tendencies. This, however, even though it is an empirical fact, is neglected in the contemporary educational situation giving us only one half of reality. Through appealing to intuition, the latter way of (knowing) reality (the instinctive, sympathetic and engaged way) could complement the former way (the spatial, solid and intelligent way) and intuition could be enhanced in education in order to get a more complete and precise account of real educational experiences and events. That education today is directed towards only one half of reality is something that also Kaustuv Roy (2019) acknowledges. Roy speaks of education being completely “ensnared” in spatial definitions of time and consequently also in measurement even “to the point that almost everyone believes that education consists in a time-controlled acquisition of measurable variables” (Roy 2019:11) where the search for meaning, and a meaningful life, may get lost. And yet, “education is precisely the making of meaning – to understand how things add up to a meaningful existence” (ibid:12). And it is here, Roy states, that intuition may present an alternative as it “begins with the whole and finds meaning of the parts only in the context of the whole” (ibid:85). The profound cause and excessive creation that mark evolution could incite education to rethink its current logic where “the same causes produce the same effects” (Bergson 1907/2007:36) in simplified acts of recognition and representation. Education could engage in questioning both mechanist and finalist notions in education – expressed in retrospective and/or prospective cause-effect driven explanations and/or pre-planned programmes – where all is already given. Education could pay more attention also to that which in the evolution of Life and intellect creatively, unpredictably and qualitatively transforms. As stated by

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Keith Ansell Pearson: “A Bergsonian-inspired education would take us beyond the realm of the natural and the necessary, in which the ready-made holds us in tutelage. Ready-made philosophy and science are to be accepted but only provisionally and as a means of climbing higher” (Ansell Pearson 2018:171). This could imply a necessary precision of the very task of education. Taking the empirically based hypothesis of creative evolution into account may incite education to both connect to and transgress its historical foundation in the task of giving free time and public place for new generations’ study and renewal of culture, knowledge and values in society. This historical foundation may not only be re-actualized as a challenge to abstract formalism but it may also itself be pushed further through a stronger focus on new generations’ qualitative and creative transformation of culture, values and knowledge in education. Moreover, the double condition of (knowing) reality and the redoubling of this condition in both the “external world” and our “inner lives” may incite also a different and alternative conception of a qualitative and creative transformation of human beings in education, not the least when it comes to the conceptions we have of the development of human subjects from “childhood” into “adulthood”, something to which Bergson himself paid attention in his account of a creative evolution: That the child can become a youth, ripen to maturity and decline to old age, we understand when we consider that vital evolution is here the reality itself. Infancy, adolescence, maturity, old age, are mere views of the mind, possible stops imagined by us, from without, along the continuity of a progress. On the contrary, let childhood, adolescence, maturity and old age be given as integral parts of the evolution, they become real stops, and we can no longer conceive how evolution is possible, for rests beside rests will never be equivalent to a movement. How, with what is made, can we reconstitute what is being made? How, for instance, from childhood once posited as a thing, shall we pass to adolescence, when, by the hypothesis, childhood only is given? (…) When we say ‘The child becomes a man,” let us take care not to fathom too deeply the literal meaning of the expression, or we shall find that, when we posit the subject ‘child,’ the attribute ‘man’ does not yet apply to it, and that, when we express the attribute ‘man,’ it applies no more to the subject ‘child’. The reality, which is the transition from childhood to manhood, has slipped between our fingers. We have only the imaginary stops ‘child’ and ‘man’ (…) The truth is that if language here were moulded on reality, we should not say ‘The child becomes the man,’ but ‘There is becoming from the child to the man.’ In the first proposition, ‘becomes’ is a verb of indeterminate meaning, intended to mask the absurdity into which we fall when we attribute the state ‘man’ to the subject ‘child’ (…) In the second proposition, ‘becoming’ is a subject. It comes to the front. It is the reality itself. (Bergson 1907/2007:199–200, original emphasis)

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•

•

This presents, then, an alternative conception of children and childhood and adults and adulthood in and beyond the educational system. “Childhood” and “adulthood” may be conceptualized also as continuous and qualitative transitions where human subjects continuously and creatively transform. The quantitatively informed “imaginary stops” expressed in the notions of a “progress” from “child” and “childhood” to “adult” and “adulthood” may be complemented by attention paid to the qualitative specificity of the real transitional and transformative character of children and childhood as well as of adults and adulthood throughout and beyond the educational system. Kaustuv Roy (2019) describes how intuition may reveal such qualitatively temporal transition and how it is important to see that the difference between adults and children “is not quantitative (amount of knowledge possessed by each, etc.) but qualitative (different flows)” and this is important as it “gives us a pedagogic direction away from the illusions that the quantity-quality mix-up produces” (Roy 2019:104). Bronwyn Davies’ (2014) further enhances this “pedagogic direction” by proposing that Bergson’s account of evolution may incite a listening to young children that take into account the double condition of our existence but that also engages both children and adults in “new ways of knowing and new ways of being, both for those who listen and those who are listened to” (Davies 2014:21–22). Life and consciousness proceed within creative evolution through hesitation, which constitutes the very beginning of the (self )creation of different life forms. This characteristic of Life itself and consciousness could be something of utmost importance to highlight in the contemporary educational situation. This may directly challenge the high, but often empty, rationality and illusion of “progress” and “results” from simple “states” to more “developed” ones (in and of subjects and objects) that mark abstract formalism in contemporary education. In-determination and hesitation may be considered as a potential and an “alternative” approach to and in education. This could come with the benefit of paying more attention to the uncertain and unpredictable, but completely and empirically real, aspects of educational life. Uncertainty, unpredictability and hesitation could be considered no longer as weaknesses that should be disposed of, but, on the contrary, as creative sources from which real educational life evolves. The above account of evolution ends up in something that could be considered a paradox in terms of “a finality without end” and “a ‘purposiveness without purpose’, i.e. purposiveness without a conceptually determined goal” (Sinclair 2020:214). This paradox, rather than being considered confused, may constitute an important complement to a too strong focus on obtaining all too detailed and still all too abstract and general goals in education. It would challenge the intellectual understanding of goal orientation “which clumsily struggles with a principle that is finer and more graceful than its deliberate efforts” (ibid) and it would incite and invite education

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•

to a more sophisticated idea of finality and purposiveness. The educational project as well as different projects in education could be defined through notions of finality and purposiveness, but without permanently nailing down all too detailed, abstract and general goals, ends and purposes. If this more refined kind of finality and purposiveness could be inserted into education to a larger extent, it may come closer to how real life itself as well as our knowledge of it evolves. The creative and problem-posing mode of Bergson’s oeuvre and his study of the evolution of Life on the planet may challenge the forcing of readymade problems upon educands and educators as well as demands of them to solve such problems with equally given and corresponding solutions in the contemporary educational situation. The idea that Life is a profoundly creative response to the problem of how to live in a material world could give to all involved in education, and to education herself, the freedom necessary for more experimental processes where children, pupils, students and teachers may engage in the formulation of questions and the construction of problems that they find important and interesting. This creative and problem-posing mode may become the centre of the problem of education itself. An “alternative” construction of the problem of education could make the creation of problems its very essence and this could give education a much more complete and precise relation to how real Life and consciousness in our “inner and outer worlds” evolve.

These points are only a first hint of what intuition as a method and provocation of “alternatives” may reveal to us in educational practice and theory. Such work will be further illustrated and pursued below as well as in Part II and Part III of the present book, where it will also become clear that much of this is already, although not always acknowledged, occurring within educational practice and theory. For now, we may conclude that the method of intuition can incite us to be cautious about relying solely upon what intelligence claims to already know of educational experiences and events. For now, we can also conclude that it may be beneficial to complement too wide and too narrow, abstract and formalist, past and future oriented representations with concepts that “fit perfectly” with educational experiences and events. The method of intuition may incite us, in sum, to search for forms of explanation of and in education that are more elastic, innovative and soft, while still staying so close to that which is explained, that the explanation comes forward as precise. Perhaps one beneficial thing with such explanations is that they would avoid being caught up in the current battlefield of arguments between scandalized hard-core realists and equally upset idealists and profiting populists, who insist upon their notions of real as facts, real as social constructions, or real as that which you wish it to be. Perhaps, the complementary use of the method of intuition and its claims of precision may be fruitful here.

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Importantly, though, and as said in the introduction to this chapter, when considering the “decisive turn” in chapter three of Creative Evolution (1907/2007:117) where intuition reaches its limit, all said above is certainly not suggesting that we should get rid of intelligence in contemporary education. Not only is the vital impetus finite and incapable of overcoming all obstacles (Bergson 1907/2007:163), but it is also in the intelligence of the human being and consciousness that it reaches its highest degree of sophistication and freedom: The whole history of life until man has been that of the effort of consciousness to raise matter, and of the more or less complete overwhelming of consciousness by the matter which has fallen back on it (…) It was to create with matter, which is necessity itself, an instrument of freedom, to make a machine which should triumph over mechanism, and to use the determinism of nature to pass through the meshes of the net which this very determinism had spread. But, everywhere except in man, consciousness has let itself be caught in the net whose meshes it tried to pass through: it has remained the captive of the mechanisms it has set up (…) But man not only maintains his machine, he succeeds in using it as he pleases. (Bergson 1907/2007:169–170) This, the vital impetus owes, according to Bergson, precisely to the complex and rich human brain, language and social life. At the same time, then, as we witness an almost overwhelming instrumental mechanism in education, we do have access to a brain, an intellect, a language, a social life, and even machines and tools that make it possible for us to overcome it. Within these two ways of (knowing) the real, then, also education has a two-folded task. It concerns both “socialisation and anti-socialisation”; both intelligence with “its practical truths” and intuition as “way of life” is needed for “dealing with reality, or with different aspects of it, and it is an education in realities that Bergson wants above all” Ansell Pearson (2018:170). It is just that in the contemporary educational situation the proportions attributed to intelligence and intuition are not in equilibrium. Something that does not seem to have changed since Bergson wrote these words in 1907: “In the humanity of which we are part, intuition is, in fact, almost completely sacrificed to intellect” (Bergson 1907/2007:171). The mode of knowledge favoured in contemporary education is intelligence at the price of a lost intuition. It is this that needs to be paid attention to, and education could allow for intuition to complement intelligence to a larger extent. It is, after all, the two in concert that would allow as Bergson says, for “a perfect humanity”: Intuition and intellect represent two opposite directions of the work of consciousness: intuition goes in the very direction of life, intellect goes in the inverse direction, and thus finds itself naturally in accordance with

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the movement of matter. A complete and perfect humanity would be that in which these two forms of conscious activity should attain their full development. (Bergson/1907/2007:171) Not that education needs yet another responsibility put upon it – this time no less than one of creating a “complete and perfect humanity”. This, even though such aspirations have been and are still common, is certainly too much to ask of education, and the question is also if such humanity would even be bearable and desirable – flaws in us and the world have their right to exist as well! Education, however, is fully part of the societal generational effort and quest for the preservation and transformation of life, matter and, not the least, culture, knowledge and values – it is one if not the institution per se upon which this task falls. Education may therefore in its contribution, together with all other societal institutions preoccupied with such a task, let itself be inspired by the two ways that both life and the knowledge we may have of it creatively evolve. Education may, to a larger extent, embrace the empirical fact that it is necessary to transgress the knowledge we think we have of both life and intelligence through an appeal to intuition. Such an inspiration may bring about an “alternative” approach also towards the, in the introduction mentioned, longing for something that endures. It was there shown that the current doubt in real educational experiences and events may be due to and expresses itself through a desire for something that endures and assures stability in ourselves and in the world. But that which endures is not only that which is stable and unchanging but also and perhaps predominantly that which continuously transforms. In other words, change may be what is “the most substantial and durable thing possible” (Bergson 1934/2007:125).

Converging Differences: Becoming Larger than Neuro-Life The above-described evolution of Life on the planet and two ways of (knowing) reality actualize also alternative conceptions of the becoming aspects of educational experiences and events. This was seen in the quote above on childhood and adulthood that displayed the transitional character of a “becoming of every age” rather than progressive development from “state to state”. In that quote and in the last chapter of Creative Evolution (1907/2007) becoming is the subject and signum of reality itself. But even though it may be there that Bergson most explicitly speaks of becoming, it is perhaps through turning to his preceding major work Matter and Memory (1896/1991) that becoming may best be conceptualized as an “alternative” in the contemporary educational situation. Despite that becoming is more rarely mentioned in this second major work, it is precisely the relation and encounters between matter and memory “that constitute the field of evolutionary becoming” (Grosz 2004:163). This magnificent but difficult book introduces a becoming that not only transgresses contemporary neurological modes of explanation of educational experiences and events but also provokes some

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“alternatives” to the broken relations and static dualisms expressed in aesthetical and ethical dimensions in the contemporary educational situation. Beginning with clarifying the status and modus of the human brain, the problem that Matter and Memory (1896/1991) poses concerns precisely the relation between mind and material bodies (including our own body and its brain). And, as earlier stated, one thing that Bergson attempts to do in this book is to “to lessen greatly, if not to overcome, the theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism” (Bergson 1896/1991:9). Bergson approaches the problem by showing how the dualism between mind and material bodies becomes settled when space is allowed to intervene and through perception produce a distance and a division between mind and matter – between “our mind” and “our body” as well as between “our mind” and “things”. This spatialized vision is due to how perception is directed towards action that pragmatically and reductively deforms matter. This, however, is not the only or even the true nature of matter and the quest that Bergson begins with this book concerns therefore to restore to matter (including our own body and its brain) its “ultimate reality”9 (Worms 2013a:112, my translation). The main thesis is this time double: “the critique of space is extended to the perception of matter, leading to a metaphysics of duration, that in turn is extended to the reality of matter”10 (Worms 2013a:113, my translation). This two-folded thesis is further described below. Let’s begin with the brain. Bergson’s account of the brain in Matter and Memory (1896/1991) does have something to say also about contemporary “neuromania” in education. As stated in the introduction, there is, particularly with less qualified translations of neuroscientific findings into education, an assumed connection between the brain and the conscious human mind and behaviour. This assumption implies, to use Rose and Abi Rached’s earlier referred term, that “mind is what brain does” (Rose & Abi-Rached 2013:13), or that, as Bergson himself puts it, “it is laid down that, could we penetrate into the inside of the brain at work and behold the dance of the atoms which make up the cortex, and if, on the other hand, we possessed the key to psychophysiology, we should know every detail of what is going on in the corresponding consciousness” (Bergson 1896/1991:12). But already in Bergson’s own time this imprecise translation of the functioning of the brain to the human mind and consciousness was by him contested: That there is a close connection between a state of consciousness and the brain we do not dispute. But there is also a close connection between a coat and the nail on which it hangs, for, if the nail is pulled out, the coat falls to the ground. Shall we say, then, that the shape of the nail gives us the shape of the coat, or in any way corresponds to it? No more are we entitled to conclude, because the physical fact is hung onto a cerebral state, that there is any parallelism between the two series psychical and physiological. (Bergson 1896/1991:12)

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This kind of epiphenomenalism and parallelism where “mind is what brain does” in a simplified causal relation from the latter to the former has no sense for Bergson. Not only because the problem of the relation between the physiological and the psychical is badly stated, and that the translation suffers from impreciseness,11 but more so because it concerns a reduction of the relations the nervous system has to the rest of the material world. The idea that the brain is an isolated material object must therefore be contested: But is it possible to conceive the nervous system as living apart from the organism which nourishes it, from the atmosphere in which the organism breathes, from the earth which that atmosphere envelopes, from the sun round which the earth revolves? (Bergson 1896/1991:24) An alternative must be presented “since the image of the nervous system and of its internal movements is only, by hypothesis, that of a certain material object, whereas I represent to myself the whole material universe” (Bergson 1896/1991:22). In Matter and Memory (1896/1991) Bergson presents the human brain as something much more than that of an isolated material object, but also as something much less than that of a cause to or a container of intellectual representations of the external world. The office of the brain is not to harbour such representations in the shape of cinematographic miniature images located in the grey matter (which now and then is and was the most common idea of the brain’s status). The brain does not serve to produce intellectual representations and knowledge of the world and ourselves (which now and then is and was the most common idea of the brain’s modus). The brain is instead, completely and wholly, directed towards movement: afferent centripetal nerves in the body transmit movement from the external world into the brain, and the body’s efferent centrifugal nerves in turn transmit movement from the brain to the body’s extremities and actions in the external world (Bergson 1896/1991:29–30, Sinclair 2020:114). What the brain does (and this is a major task) is to receive and transmit these movements, functioning like a “central telephonic exchange”, as Bergson puts it (1896/1991:30), in preparing the body for action: In other words, the brain appears to us be an instrument of analysis in regard to the movement received and an instrument of selection in regard to the movement executed. But, in the one case as in the other, its office is limited to the transmission and division of movement. And no more in the higher centers of the cortex than in the spinal cord do the nervous elements work with a view to knowledge: they do but indicate a number of possible actions at once, or organize one of them. That is to say that the nervous system is in no sense an apparatus which may serve to fabricate, or even to prepare, representations. Its function is to receive stimulation, to provide motor apparatus, and to present the largest possible number of these apparatuses to a given stimulus. (Bergson 1896/1991:30–31)

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Furthermore, if it is accepted that the nervous system functions in this way, Bergson postulates that this must also go for perception, which is regulated by the nervous system: But, if the nervous system is thus constructed (…) must we not think that perception, of which the progress is regulated by that of the nervous system, is also entirely directed toward action, and not toward pure knowledge? (Bergson 1896/1991:31) Perception too, then, is marked by the reception and execution of movement and as in the account of the creative evolution of the intellect, Bergson’s account of perception is in this preceding book “biologically driven” (Sinclair 2020:117). It indicates that perception rather than being of a purely intellectual character is a corporeal act through which living organisms orient themselves in a material world and engage with matter. Moreover, perception is here subtractive and pragmatic in that the body perceives only that in the object which interests it, and which is of use for its impending actions: “Perception, therefore, consists in detaching, from the totality of objects, the possible action of my body upon them” (Bergson/1896/1991:229). The nervous system that regulates perception is, as Bergson states above, an instrument of analysis and selection, and perception and its accompanying actions not only detach from and deform, but also discern in matter that which is in accordance with its interests and needs. However, and as clearly stated by Elisabeth Grosz, this does not pertain, as is usually imagined, in the first hand to consciousness: My body serves to filter, simplify, highlight, or outline those qualities of the object that may be of relevance or use. This does not occur in the form of a conscious or unconscious judgement but is inherent in the very act of perception itself, which is always a simplification of the object, the elimination from it of what does not interest us. (Grosz 2004:165) Despite this devaluation of consciousness and despite the slightly negative role of the brain and the body so far designed, it is important to see that this act of discernment and selection also expresses the liberty with which the human body and brain can approach matter in contrast to other and simpler forms of life. The movement between the reception of a stimulus and a response that occurs with complex forms of life leaves to the human brain and body a longer delay, a “richer” perception, and a larger number of choices of how to act and respond: The greater the body’s power of action (symbolized by a higher degree of complexity in the nervous system), the wider is the field that perception embraces. (Bergson 1896/1991:56)

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With more complex forms of life the delay and distance between movement received and movement executed increases and thereby increases also “the degree of indeterminacy, the degree of freedom, that life exhibits relative to the inertia of matter, the capacity that all forms of life, in varying degrees, have to introduce something new” (Grosz 2004:167). But what is it that is perceived then? How is matter more precisely defined by Bergson? In the introduction to Matter and Memory (1896/1991), Bergson asks us to forget what we think we know from both idealist and realist accounts of matter. Matter is here, already in the introduction to the book (perhaps a bit surprisingly) not identified as a substance, but in terms of “an aggregate of images” placed midway between the idealist notion of a representation and the realist notion of a thing-in-itself: Matter, in our view, is an aggregate of ‘images.’ And by ‘image’ we mean a certain existence which is more than that which the idealist calls a representation, but less than that which the realist calls a thing – an existence placed halfway between the ‘thing’ and the ‘representation’ (…) the object exists in itself, and, on the other hand, the object is, in itself, pictorial, as we perceive it: image it is, but a self-existing image. (Bergson 1896/1991:9–10, original emphasis) With the def inition of matter as “an aggregate of images” Bergson seems to intend to forego the division between on the one hand the existence and on the other hand the appearance of matter that realism and idealism together have produced while still taking stock of their respective contributions to the question of the status and modus of matter – objects exist independently of our perception (they are still there when we close our eyes) and they are perceived as images (that join and are not different, although and as seen above less, than the objects themselves). However, even though taking stock of both idealism and realism’s most profound insights, the introduction of “an aggregate of images” seems to respond to how each of them (in slightly different ways) “mistreats” perception through taking a detour by the intellect and through reducing perception to speculative knowledge. Both miss out on that which for Bergson def ines both the intellect and perception: bodies that act in and transform the world. In the very beginning of Matter and Memory (1896/1991), then, one reason for introducing matter as “self-existing images” seems to be all about escaping the double intellectual imprisonment of both mind and material bodies created by the most inf luential philosophical schools of Bergson’s time to be able to make perception more closely connected to real material bodies that act in and continuously transform the world. Amongst these aggregates of images that Bergson defines as matter, our own body has a special place. Even though fully part of the “aggregate of images” that

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constitute matter it has a privileged position as it has a larger choice of potential actions to perform: Here are external images, then my body, and, lastly, the changes brought about by my body in the surrounding images. I see plainly how external images influence my body: they transmit movement to it. And I also see how this body influences external images: it gives back movement to them. My body is, then, in the aggregate of the material world, an image which acts like other images, receiving and giving back movement, with, perhaps, this difference only, that my body appears to choose, within certain limits, the manner in which it shall restore what it receives. (Bergson 1896/1991:19) Though, in that choice it is still mainly the body that is at stake. My body, “is distinguished from other objects not because it is the privileged location of my consciousness but because it performs major changes in other objects relative to itself, because it is the central organizing site through which other images/ objects are ordered” (Grosz 2004:166).12 But my body also has a special privilege in another sense: it is capable of affections and sensations. Now, again, these are by Bergson defined as material-corporeal and as going from the world to us and not as conscious representations coming from us into the world. Here, and again, both idealism and realism are according to Bergson mistaken by taking the detour by the subject’s intellectual representations: Realists and idealists are agreed in this method of reasoning. The latter see in the material universe nothing but a synthesis of subjective and unextended states; the former add that, behind this synthesis, there is an independent reality corresponding to it, but both conclude, from the gradual passage of affection to representation, that our representation of the material universe is relative and subjective and that is has, so to speak, emerged from us, rather than that we have emerged from it. (Bergson 1896/1991:54) Affections, in fact, rather than being “inner cognitive affairs”, consist in the very encounter and contact with objects external to us. Affections and sensations occur when this encounter is reduced to direct contact, that is, when the distance between the object that affects us and our own body is nil, when “the object to be perceived coincides with our body” and when “our body is the object to be perceived” (Bergson 1896/1991:57). Perception, is, then, what comes before and conditions affections and sensations, not the other way around (Worms 2013b:17). Why is this important? Well, for one it reenforces the alternative to any all too intellectual and subjective notion of perception. It also prepares for considering perception as taking place in the outer world “in things where they are” and of conceiving affection and sensation, although experienced in our own

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body, as springing from the external world and from our actions and encounters with matter in that world: Just as external objects are perceived by me where they are, in themselves and not in me, so my affective states are experienced where they occur, that is, at a given point in my body. (Bergson 1896/1991:57) The brain, then, even though being such an important matter and material organ of the human body, is not what causes, contains or explains either affections or perceptions. Rather, “that which the brain explains in our perception is action begun, prepared or suggested, it is not perception itself ” (Bergson 1896/1991:225). The brain being part of the body and the body’s perceptive and affective functions do not produce any representations – the body and its functions are restricted to action, and as Bergson by the end of the book persistently insists, to action only: The idea that we have disengaged from the facts and confirmed by reasoning is that our body is an instrument of action, and of action only. In no degree, in no sense, under no aspect, does it serve to prepare, far less to explain, a representation. (Bergson 1896/1991:225) In the above account of Bergson’s Matter and Memory (1896/1991), it is the first part of the two-folded thesis concerning the critique of spatialization as it is expressed in perception that has been in focus: the body, including the brain and the body’s perceptive and affective functions (and despite their relative freedom and creative aspects), is destined towards action and action only. Now, how does Bergson proceed with the second part of the thesis concerning duration and the durational reality of matter? Memory enters the scene. In fact, there is no perception which is not full of memories. With the immediate and present data of our senses, we mingle a thousand details out of our past experience. (Bergson 1896/1991:33) At first, though, memory enters the scene dressed as an action figure and marked by the same kind of spatialization as perception. Bergson defines two forms of memory. One is “habit-memory” – corporeal repetitions of acts that become automated such as for instance learning to drive a car. Habit-memory concerns a “learning by heart” that is of utmost importance in our lives. Despite the usual negative connotations of habit and its’ flagrant spatializing features, there is a profoundly creative function of this kind of memory: it allows us to perform the

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many daily acts necessary for our existence in a world of matter. It actualizes past experienced acts and events in a bodily repetition that does not need conscious reflection (at least once “the lesson is learnt”) and it is “always bent upon action, seated in the present and looking only to the future” (Bergson 1896/1991:82). Habit-memory has “a kind of ‘natural’ place in the cerebral interval between perception and action, for it is the most action-oriented, the most present- and future-seeking of memories from inert past” (Grosz 2004:169). Habit-memory is, then, “lived and acted, rather than represented” (Bergson 1896/1991:81). The other form of memory is “representative memory” – a more personal memory of singular events in the unique past of an individual. Representative memory concerns someone’s uniquely coloured memories that, just as habit-­memory, is of utmost importance for our lives: it occurs when our body is not overwhelmed by the necessity to act and it is in this memory “we take refuge every time that, in the search of a particular image, we remount the slope of our past” (Bergson 1896/1991:81). Even though this second form of memory is representing the past our body serves to materialize and insert also this form of memory into an impending action. This memory joins perception that is “prolonged into a nascent action; and while the images are taking their place and order in this memory, the movements which continue them modify the organism and create in the body new dispositions toward action” (Bergson 1896/1991:81). And as accessing this kind of memory, like habit-memory, demands a certain act of repetition, it is common to see the latter as a “model memory, and to see in spontaneous recollection only the same phenomena in a nascent state, the beginning of a lesson learned by heart” (Bergson 1896/1991:83).13 Now, these two forms of memory, or two forms of preserving the past in the present (through learned habit or through recollection of singular events), and their prolongation (in slightly different ways) into perception and action is what occurs in the act of recognition – when something or someone seems familiar to us. Recognition is most often closely related to perception and action through habit-memory, but it also occurs through representative memory and spontaneous recollection of memory-images that join the current perception and prolongs it into action: Sometimes, by an entirely passive recognition, acted rather than thought, the body responds to a perception that recurs by a movement or attitude that has become automatic (…) Sometimes, on the other hand, recognition is actively produced by memory-images which go out to meet the present perception. (Bergson 1896/1991:237–238) The latter occurrence of recognition demands active attention to the connection between a certain memory and a specific perception. This attention, however ( just like with affection and sensation), does not imply an introvert mind consciously reflecting upon itself. Bergson explicitly states that psychologists who

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talk about attention in terms of a “concentration of the mind”, of “apperceptive efforts” or of “a higher tension of cerebral energy”, either fall into physiological symbolism or metaphor (Bergson/1896/1991:100). Even attention, then, concerns “an adaptation of the body rather than of the mind” and it is the “consciousness of an attitude” rather than the other way around “an attitude of consciousness” (Bergson 1896/1991:100). It concerns an outward projection of a to the object corresponding and resembling memory-image and an “effort of synthesis” (Bergson 1896/1991:102) – a creation of memory-images that may join a current perception and thereby come to life in it: But every attentive perception truly involves a reflection, in the etymological sense of the word, that is to say the projection, outside ourselves, of an actively created image, identical with, or similar to, the object on which it comes to mold itself. (Bergson 1896/1991:102, original emphasis) The process of attentive and reflective perception is like a circuit with the object perceived in the centre surrounded by ever-widening and expanding circles of memory-images, the last and widest circle constituting the whole of a person’s memory (Bergson 1896/1991:104–105). There is a “mutual tension” and exchange between the perception of an object and these memory images. Each circle represents both a deeper part of the object and a higher tension of memory: “attentive recognition is a kind of circuit in which the external object yields to us deeper and deeper parts of itself, as our memory adopts a correspondingly higher degree of tension in order to project recollections toward it” (Bergson 1896/1991:116, original emphasis). Memory is, as stated by Elisabeth Grosz, “fundamentally elastic” – there are different degrees of concentration and tension at stake in all our memories and “a fundamental solidarity between the object of perception and the circuits of memory that enables us to elucidate and elaborate that perception when we concentrate on or pay attention to the object” (Grosz 2004:173). Perception and memory walk hand in hand in an act and movement where memory brings back to the object that which perception must discharge, and together they “converge to bathe the object in its potential, to make it available for present and future use in ways unrecognized by habit” (Grosz 2004:175). This common activity and solidary action of perception and memory, even though highly creative, testify to the almost overwhelming powers of the body in its conditioning of our perceptions, affections, sensations and our memories. Not only does my body concern my perceptions, affections and my habits, but it also serves to accommodate the insertion of representative memories from the past into my life so that they may become alive in my present and impending actions: “in fact, it is toward action that memory and perception are turned; it is action that the body prepares” (Bergson 1896/1991:227–228). So far, consciousness seems to be, to say the least, somewhat downplayed when confronted with these powers of the body. But this must be understood

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as an effort to resist the appeal to pure intellectual speculation in perception and memory that seems so profoundly connected to a conscious mind that it is almost impossible to conceive it otherwise. Bergson insists, however, and the downplaying of consciousness is part of the effort displayed in this great book of giving back to matter and to the body it’s “ultimate reality”; Matter and Memory (1896/1991) is truly, as Frédéric Worms (2019a, my translation) puts it, “a great treaty of the body”.14 Consciousness is though, of course, there. It is, as stated in the above account of the creative evolution, in the very distance, choice and liberty that the human mind displays in its encounter with matter and it is also engaged in the individual recollections that meet with perception through habit-­ memory and representative memory: Our representation of matter is the measure of our possible action upon bodies: it results from the discarding of what has no interest for our needs, or more generally, for our functions (…) Consciousness – in regard to external perception – lies in just this choice. (Bergson 1896/1991:38) In short, memory in these two forms, covering as it does with a cloak of recollections a core of immediate perception, and also contracting a number of external moments into a single internal moment, constitutes the principal share of individual consciousness in perception. (Bergson 1896/1991:34) This role of consciousness is perhaps most clearly seen in the most famous of all of Bergson’s figures: the cone (Bergson 1896/1991:162). The cone is inverted, and its pointed end illustrates the sensory-motor consciousness expressed and prolonged into bodily action (habit-memory) as it is inserted into the plane of our present perception. The base of the cone is at the top of the figure, illustrating the widest and most relaxed plane of the totality of our memories from the past (representative memory). As we descend from the top and this widest base of our memories, closer and closer towards the pointed end, we come closer and closer to action (and vice versa). Between the pointed end, the present sensory-motor perception and action, and the widest base of the totality of our memories there is a large range of differently tensed planes of consciousness: Between the plane of action – the plane in which our body has condensed its past into motor habits – and the plane of pure memory, where our mind retains in all its details the picture of our past life, we believe that we can discover thousands of different planes of consciousness, a thousand integral and yet diverse repetitions of the whole of experience through which we have lived. To complete a recollection by more personal details does not at all consist in mechanically juxtaposing other recollections to this, but in transporting ourselves to a wider plane of consciousness, in going away

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from action in the direction of dream. Neither does the localizing of a recollection consist in inserting it mechanically among other memories, but in describing, by an increasing expansion of the memory as a whole, a circle large enough to include this detail from the past. These planes, moreover, are not given as ready-made things superposed the one on the other. Rather they exist virtually, with that existence which is proper to things of the spirit. The intellect, forever moving in the interval which separates them, unceasingly finds them again or creates them anew: the life of intellect consists in this very movement. (Bergson 1896/1991:241–242) A “well-balanced” mind is, according to Bergson, expressed in a person who does not live only in the one or the other extreme point of these planes – neither completely in the widened totality of the past as a dreamer nor solely in the contracted present as an impulsive action-figure (Bergson 1896/1991:153). These extreme points, however, are somewhat artificial as the different planes are not given but continuously re-activated and created – neither memories nor actions can be reduced to simple repetition of a completely given order or a past that is wholly determining the present and the future: “The whole of our past psychical life conditions our present state, without being its necessary determinant” (Bergson 1896/1991:148) – there is something profoundly transformative at stake in this continuous movement between action and memory. It is also and precisely in this movement between the different planes (now further away from the action and closer to remembering, now closer to action and further away from the totality of my memories of the whole of my past) that ideas are born: “The nascent generality of the idea consists, then, in a certain activity of the mind, in a movement between action and representation” (Bergson 1896/1991:243, original emphasis). Interestingly – and especially in relation to what is to come in Part III of the present book: an example of a literacy-event in ECEC – the figure of the inverted cone illustrates not only the relation between bodily action as such (a body moving in the world) and consciousness, but also and as Bergson convincingly shows, the learning of language: To hear speech is, in fact, first of all to recognize a sound, then to discover its sense, and finally to interpret it more or less thoroughly: in short, it is to pass through all the stages of attention and to exercise several higher or lower powers of memory (…) first, an automatic sensori-motor process; secondly, an active and, so to speak, excentric projection of memory-images. (Bergson 1896/1991:109) When listening to a speaker and when learning a language, the listener must first prepare hers/his sensori-motor schema for the reception of sound, and then place her/himself “in the conceptual orbit of the speaker, through a leap into meaning-­ receptivity in general, and then focus on a particular articulation” (Grosz 2004:180).

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In fact, and as stated by Elizabeth Grosz, we do not, even though this is commonly thought, come to understand language piece by piece: We develop and understanding of language all at once. We can understand language only through a wholesale immersion in its conceptuality or sense, and only from there can we materialize the sounds we hear or the words we read into a form of comprehension. (Grosz 2004:180) Learning language concerns, then, a leap into a dimension of sense and meaning. Language, moreover, must be considered as much more complex than being a simple transaction and communication from listener to receiver. There is more in language than the uttered words: “every language, whether elaborated or crude, leaves many more things to be understood than it is able to express” (Bergson 1896/1991:125). Moreover, every uttered word and sentence varies with the person who is pronouncing them: The auditory image of a word is not an object with well-defined outlines, for the same word pronounced by different voices, or by the same voice on different notes, gives a different sound. (Bergson 1896/1991:117) Language, then, cannot be considered a “ready-made thing” and language learning must rather be seen as occurring precisely within the creative movement between action and representation. It is precisely this movement and “double current” between action and representation that psychological “associationism”, such as the one expressed by empiricists and rationalists alike, misses when reducing psychical life to separate and stagnated “states” – empty forms without matter. And that is why a psychology which abides by the already done, which considers only that which is made and ignores that which is in the making, will never perceive in this movement anything more than the two extremities between which it oscillates; it makes the general idea coincide sometimes with the action that manifests it or the word which expresses it and at other times with the multitudinous images, unlimited in number, which are its equivalent in memory. But the truth is that the general idea escapes us as soon as we try to fix it at either of the two extremities. It consists in the double current which goes from the one to the other – always ready either to crystallize into uttered words or to evaporate into memories. (Bergson 1896/1991:162, original emphasis) The critique of “states”, however, may apply also to how perception and memory above, and so far, have been differentiated and treated in their “pure states”.

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The second part of the thesis concerning duration and the durational reality of matter is not yet fully addressed. Neither is the convergence of the differences between matter and mind and the lessening of “the theoretical difficulties that have always beset dualism” (Bergson 1896/1991:9). Even though the above account of perception and memory, including the figure of the inverted cone, certainly gives a more complex image of both mind and matter and even though perception and memory are here seen to complement each other, there has not yet been any clear signs of the second part of the thesis concerning duration and the durational reality of matter. The dualism between matter and mind, despite the demonstrated solidarity between perception and memory, may need to be theorized yet further. After having differentiated perception and memory in their “pure states”, and if keeping with the initial ambition of “lessening greatly the theoretical difficulties that have always beset dualism”, the task to join them, as Bergson himself states in the summary and conclusion of the book, still remains: By representing elementary mental activity in this manner to ourselves, and by thus making of our body and all that surrounds it the pointed end ever moving, ever driven into the future by the weight of our past, we were able to confirm and illustrate what we have said of the function of the body, and at the same time to prepare the way for an approximation of body and mind. For after having successively studied pure perception and pure memory, we still had to bring them together. (Bergson 1896/1991:243) So, how and where does Bergson go looking for the convergence of the differences and the community of matter and mind? The answer is deceivingly simple: in time itself. In time itself, however, understood precisely not as space. In time understood as the uninterrupted elastic stretch and continuation of the past into the present and the future. In time where past, present and future do not seemingly but seamlessly continue. In short, in time understood as “the fundamental time”15 and as durational becoming (Worms 2013b:31–33, my translation). In duration “time goes by” from the past into the present and future but without any clear-cut distinctions. Here, the present does not constitute a spatialized “mathematical point in space”, and if for the sake of reason this is how we ideally (and practically) represent it, continuous duration still overwhelms it – “as time goes by” the present stretches into both the past and the future: The essence of time is that it goes by; time already gone by is the past, and we call the present the instant in which it goes by. But there can be no question here of a mathematical instant. No doubt there is an ideal present – a pure conception, the indivisible limit which separates past from future. But the real, concrete, live present – that of which I speak when I speak of my present perception – that present necessarily occupies a duration. Where then is this duration placed? Is it on the nearer or on the further side of the

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mathematical point that I determine ideally when I think of the present instant? Quite evidently, it is both on this side and on that, and what I call ‘my present’ has one foot in my past and another in my future. (Bergson 1896/1991:137–138) The present, then, just as shown in the figure of the cone, is marked by “the consciousness I have of my body” (Bergson 1896/1991:138), but again, that body, just as the present itself, is not a mathematical point in space – it is rather an expression of “the actual state of my becoming, that part of my duration which is in process of growth” (ibid, emphasis added). In contrast to any form of “presentism”, then, time as durational becoming makes of the present “what is being made” and not what is: Nothing is less than the present moment, if you understand by that the indivisible limit which divides the past from the future. When we think this present as going to be, it exists not yet, and when we think it as existing, it is already past. If, on the other hand, what you are considering is the concrete present such as it is actually lived by consciousness, we may say that this present consists, in a large measure, in the immediate past. (Bergson 1896/1991:150, original emphasis) If the present is already immediate past it is also fully part of “the invisible progress of the past gnawing into the future” (ibid), and then becoming cannot concern the passage from one instant to another, or as shown in the account of evolution, from one state to another. Rather, the “continuity of becoming” is reality itself: More generally, in that continuity of becoming which is reality itself, the present moment is constituted by the quasi-instantaneous section effected by our perception in the flowing mass, and this section is precisely that which we call the material world. Our body occupies its center; it is, in this material world, that part of which we directly feel the flux; in its actual state the actuality of our present lies. (Bergson 1896/1991:139) If the continuity of becoming is reality itself and if the “flowing mass” in which we (quasi-instantaneously) perceive is “the material world”, the problem of duration is transported to matter and material things themselves. It is no longer only our material body that is at stake. The first (mental and material) footstep to take for being able to see how duration pertains not only to our own body but also to matter and things themselves is to acknowledge that, just as with perception, neither the past nor language are in us. When we perceive an object, we perceive it where it is and when we recollect a memory or a word, we must

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make a “leap” from our tensed present into a wider past that is located not in us, but in duration itself: Memory, our mode of access to the past, is thus, paradoxically, not in us, just as perception is not in us. Perception takes us outside ourselves, to where objects are (in space); memory takes us where the past is (in duration). And incidentally, language, too, takes us to where concepts are. In each case, this movement – in space, in time, in concepts – is possible only because of our capacity to (temporarily, or with some effort) disconnect from our immersion in a tensile and expanding present to undertake the leap that these movements outside ourselves, and outside our habitual behavioral schemas, require. (Grosz 2004:178, original emphasis) The second (mental and material) footstep to perform is to consider this account of mind and matter as a complement to the most predominant doctrines’ (realist, idealist, empiricist, rationalist and critical) accounts of mind and matter. According to Bergson, both realism and idealism and their accompanying epistemologies – empiricism and rationalism – miss out on the becoming aspects of both us and the world (Bergson 1896/1991:183–184). As does Kantian critical philosophy, that, considering these “constructions” of knowledge: “holds all knowledge to be relative and the ultimate nature of things to be inaccessible to the mind” (Bergson 1896/1991:184). Even though any attempt to escape this three-folded dialectical trap seems deemed to fail, Bergson insists and pursues a mission that metaphorically could be described as trying to not only take footsteps further but more so to “lift oneself by one’s hair” through appealing to a metaphysical definition of the relation between mind and matter that is both critical and intuitive (Worms 2013a:140). It is, again, an audacious question at stake. This time one concerning the effort to through the intellect overcome the limits imposed within and from all angles on this very same intellect. It is in this sense that Bergson’s appeal to “go beyond the human experience” must be understood: But there is a last enterprise that might be undertaken. It would be to seek experience at its source, or rather above that decisive turn where, taking a bias in direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience. (Bergson 1896/1991:184, original emphasis) If this enterprise is accepted not only realist/empiricist and idealist/ rationalist accounts of knowledge and being, but also critical philosophical accounts of the relativity of such knowledge “may not, then, be definitive” (Bergson/1896/1991:184). The fact that our intellect, including our brain, our perceptions and affects, and our memories, are in essence bodily affairs directed

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towards action, in accordance with our needs, which vary, makes these needs also exposable to constant “unmaking” and change.16 It is through appealing not only to the critique of the spatialization of time that our body performs in perception and memory, but also to duration and the method of intuition as capable of actualizing an “immediate knowledge” (Bergson 1896/1991:187) of matter, that such an enterprise may be pursued. In that sense, there is a third kind of memory: immediate memory (Worms 2013b:65–68) – a memory that in complement to the first two memories is of a metaphysical rather than psychological character and that must be understood as fully part of our present consciousness, duration and the continuous movement of time going by. The psychological distinction of the two first memories must, then, be conceived at first hand by the metaphysics of the third, co-extensive and varying in intensity with duration and consciousness themselves.17 (Worms 2013b:67, my translation) In the last chapter of Matter and Memory (1896/1991), the question that Bergson pursues pertains to whether the method of intuition may be used to conceptualize matter no longer only as “aggregate of images”, but as fully part of the indivisible moving continuity that duration displays and that intuition is capable of entering: “Is a method of this kind applicable to the problem of matter?” (Bergson 1896/1991:186). Here, Bergson continues exploring intuition as capable of accessing indivisible, real and durational movement in us and in things. Here, matter becomes an act rather than a thing and just like memory it harbours a certain tension of duration, even though different from memory as it has a lesser degree of tensed duration (our consciousness and memory being capable of a more tensed duration than things). Matter, just like memory, is marked by a double movement of extension and tension: The matter into which our body inserts us is, then, not only extensive, but also temporal, even though minimal and relaxed (…) Matter is, then, not a thing, but an act, and even a double act, extension and tension, in that sense matter is analogue to our mind, or more precisely our memory and our life, differing, however radically from them by degree.18 (Worms 2013a:139–140, my translation, original emphasis) This then, may be where mind and matter may meet in an even more profound sense: in a temporal act where mind and matter, or subject and object, or “two forms of life”, meet in their respective double and interpenetrating features of extension and tension: Rather than a series of representations of ‘objects’ in the mind of a ‘subject’, perception is, then, an encounter between two acts or two activities, on the one side a temporal tension internal to matter, and on the other hand,

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a material and external extension of our mind, an encounter, then, one could say, between two ‘lives’, if understanding by ‘life’ not the practical constrains that leads on the contrary to false images of ourselves and things, but the immanent temporal act that is the unity of all individual reality!19 (Worms 2013a:141–142, my translation, original emphasis) The idea that also matter consists of a double movement of extension and tension is something that Bergson comes back to in The Creative Mind (1934/2007) where he proposes that this is already discovered by the physical sciences and where also material things are marked by movement.20 The method of intuition concerns, then, precisely this mobility rather than “states” and it is the very continuity of change and transition that constitutes reality (Bergson 1934/2007:6). With the notion of things being caught up in a temporal act of duration also space may become something different than the empty container or the homogenous “mathematical mesh” imagined conditioning and grounding all experiences and events. The order is reversed and also space pertains to the indivisible and moving “order of things”: Space is not a ground on which real motion is posited; rather it is real motion that deposits space beneath itself. (Bergson 1896/1991:217) Even though the above account of the interpenetrating tendencies of matter and mind, or of “two lives”, in a temporal act of duration is what foregoes Bergson’s more developed account in Creative Evolution (1907/2007), 21 it still does have some resonances in education. The attempt to join mind and matter in education is, of course, not new. In fact, Bergson’s effort may itself be considered in terms of how he “effectively carried out the Republic’s pedagogical campaign to bring together science and spirit in the classroom” (Sommer McGrath 2020:81). Considering, however, the contemporary educational situation one might contend that the Republic’s pedagogical campaign wasn’t very successful. Quite on the contrary, and as seen at the beginning of the present book, the gap between mind and matter seems today to be only widened and they both seem to be somewhat neglected in the contemporary educational situation. Therefore, the above account that posits the encounter between matter and mind in duration and the method of intuition as capable of joining such encounters seems well worth paying attention to. Below some possible resonances between such an account and the contemporary educational situation are further described. •

The above account of the body and brain’s status and modus could invite to a greater carefulness in the application of neuroscientific findings in education. This does not primarily concern a critique of neuroscience itself which, as already stated at the beginning of the present book, is a very rich and

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rapidly developing field of scientific study.22 The above account, however, does concern a philosophical and metaphysical description of the human body and brain that not only testifies to its powers but also to its limits. It could incite and invite education to pay particular attention to such limits and to tread carefully in explanations that tend towards epiphenomenal, parallel, symbolic and simplified translations between brain, mind and behaviour in educational experiences and events. Despite the limits displayed above, the human body must also be considered in its creativity, and this could be enhanced in education. The lack of attention paid to materiality in education and the deterioration of educational buildings that abstract formalism has produced in the contemporary situation may well be a consequence of the neglect of the creative powers of our bodies. Education could do well by paying much more attention to these. Attention paid to the creative aspects of habit-memory and development of bodily habits could focus, as Bergson himself indicates, “an education of the hand”. As confirmed by Mossé-Bastide (1955:201), Bergson explicitly renounces any too “bookish” and “verbal” learning and teaching. Instead, he favours paying attention to the origins of the intellect and its relation to matter, which implies that learning and teaching may as well go “from the hand to the head”: We forget that the intellect is essentially the faculty of manipulating matter, that it at least began by being so, that such was nature’s intention. Why then should the intellect not profit by manual training? We can go further and say that it is quite natural for the child to try its hand at constructing. By helping it, by furnishing it at least with opportunities, one would later obtain from the grown man a superior yield; one would greatly increase what inventiveness there is in the world. (Bergson 1934/2007:67) Of importance in the quote above is the pointing out that such “education of the hand” must not become a drill. The very creativity with which our bodily intellect has evolved should, according to Bergson, also be accounted for in education. If only by the fact that, according to him, such education lies closer to the child as a “seeker and an inventor, always on the watch for novelty” (Bergson 1934/2007:68). In that sense, education would be better of educating the child in methods rather than in already acquired results (ibid). The posing of given problems and questions with equally given problems and answers, even though socially important and legitimate, could, then, be complemented by attention and a “furnishing of opportunities” for the child to also explore more bodily, methodologically and experimentally what for the child is new and exciting. Moreover, if also matter is marked by movement, if it in one sense acts and “has its own life” (even though to a

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minimal degree) and if space is an effect of such acts marked by continuous movement and transformation, both matter and space need to be taken care of in education. Attention could be paid to how space may be creatively transformed in attunement to the creative and transforming acts that an education that honours the creative powers of the body would allow for. At the same time, though, it would be of equal importance to pay attention to the richness of the mind in education. The emptied concept of learning and “the loss of learning in celestial space” that occurs within abstract formalism in contemporary education may be challenged by the above account of the “spiritual” power of our personal memories expressed in representative memory. In fact, the way current abstract formalism in education produces such emptiness and loss of learning may be further explained by the constant confusion of the two different kinds of memories: habit memory and representative memory. Representative memory, just as Bergson states above, seems often to be treated as habit memory “the beginning of a lesson learnt” (Bergson 1896/1991:83) in the abstract and formalist discourse on contemporary education. Learning here only concerns habitual acts of repetition and recognition of something already known. The more singular and uniquely coloured memory images of a particular person seem to become suppressed in favour of simplified acts of recognition and representation of universal and impersonal knowledge. Again, Bergson expresses himself explicitly in the question and points out that such “ready-made” and impersonal knowledge rarely is retained. Education organized in an “encyclopaedic programme” rather suffocates real learning and teaching. What is needed is instead an education that is closer to children’s continuous quest for the new: However encyclopaedic as the programme may be, what the pupil can assimilate from ready-made knowledge will amount to very little, will often be studied without relish, and always be quickly forgotten (…) Rather let us cultivate a child’s knowledge in the child, and avoid smothering under an accumulation of dry leaves and branches, products of former vegetations, the new plant which asks nothing better than to grow. (Bergson 1934/2007:68) In this sense, personal memory images from the uniquely coloured past of each child, pupil and student could be enhanced in education. The “spiritual” side of education could concern attempts to encourage and enhance children’s, pupils’ and students’ personal memories in learning and teaching, thereby creating a more profound relation to that which is studied. Here, however, it is of utmost importance that representative memory is not a given. Just as with matter and space the most prominent feature of memory is that it is caught up, driven and even created by the indivisible movement of durational time. In this sense this suggested learning and teaching would not be of a “personal diary style” and furthermore it would be careful to

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not fall into the psychological trap of appealing to any simplified notions of affections and sensations. It is not a question of an all too individualistically centred psychological encouragement of each child’s, pupil’s and student’s interests and likings, nor a creation of purely personalized representations that are created and go from “me and my feelings” into the world. The direction is rather the opposite but still concerns how affect, sensations and personal memories, as they creatively change and transform in mind’s encounter with matter, must be considered if learning and teaching are to mean something more and deeper than just recognition and repetition of encyclopaedic knowledge so easily forgotten. In sum, education, learning and teaching could be enrichened by the encounter between matter and mind, perception and memories, displayed in the figure of the inverted cone. Not only accounts of language learning, but also learning, in general, could benefit from the idea that we must make a “leap into the past” and a dimension of sense and meaning. Rather than delivering knowledge (of language and other things) “piece by piece”, it is in the movement between action and representation that ideas and language are born. This could incite and invite education to a more holistic approach to the question of learning specific knowledge contents (such as language). Such an approach would honour the powers of both body and mind and it would pay particular attention to how that which we consider “ready-made things” – even matter and material things themselves – also are marked by continuous durational movement. As stated by Caterina Zanfi: “Education should, finally, be rethought in order to increase the tension between the duration of consciousness and things, that Bergson finds vital”23 (Zanfi 2020:33, my translation). The first points of resonances here accounted for (carefulness with the brain, honouring both body and mind in their differences and converging these differences in movements of continuous duration) could present some viable alternatives to the neglect and separation of Logos and World in contemporary education. In short, the aesthetic dimension in education could be enrichened by the above resonances found between education and Bergson’s differentiation and integration of matter and mind. A truly excellent and extremely precise example of what this could look like in education is given by educational scholars Elizabeth de Freitas and Francesca Ferrara (2015) as they in mathematics classrooms and events with elementary schoolchildren explore the materiality and durational quality of both human bodies and mathematical concepts. Here, even the mathematical concepts themselves are seen as mobile, fluid and full of potential, and this is something that the children also acknowledge and explore in the presented events. These scholars convincingly show how children engage in mathematics not through “timeless concepts”, but rather through the encounter between the creative powers of their bodies and a “mobile and collective memory that moves forward, partaking in the fluid alteration of the concepts as much as they partake in

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the world of sensory-motor activity” (de Freitas & Ferrara 2015:584). As a result, they may rightfully conclude that “the usual mind/body dualism that we find rampant in mathematics education research is sidestepped by our attention to the contiguity between thought and perception, and the coupling of memory with matter” (ibid). The potential of such an approach is also acknowledged by Yves Lombard (1997) who shows that Bergson recommended that also teaching of specific subject contents, mathematics included, should engage a whole culture of the intellect where, for instance, geometry can’t be reduced to an abstract phenomenon of mind as it is also a question of manipulating matter. Maths education should, therefore, for as long time as possible, focus on the encounter between an “education by the hand” and intellectual representation through, for instance, bringing in drawing, modelling and construction into the maths classroom (Lombard 1997:95, 113). Just as drawing and literacy education should begin not with “manual” training going from the simple or the parts (basic geometrical forms or grammatical components), but with the complex and the whole, even the perfect, in the sense that one should not be afraid of exposing children to the most complex expressions in literature and the arts (MosséBastide 1955:215–216, 341). Not only the aesthetical but also the ethical dimension and the relation between Individual and Society in education could be enrichened by the above account as it navigates its way through “the difficulties which have always beset dualisms” (Bergson 1896/1991:9). The above presented alternative conceptions of the body, brain, perception, affection, memory and mind do have resonances also with this relation and the status and modus we attribute to its respective components in contemporary education. Differentiating but also converging differences is as important for this coupled relation as it is for one of Logos and World. An individual is in the account above not possible to account for through dissecting different psychological “states”. Yet, that is the most common understanding of the individual in education. Kaustuv Roy (2019) joins Bergson’s critique of states and points out that this is the most common idea of individual learning: “The idea that learning consists of a succession of states is set very deep in the belief system of modern educationists informed as they are by the psychometric model of measuring learning. Nevertheless, it is based on a serious misunderstanding and confusion between quality and quantity, between mechanical time and inner duration” (Roy 2019:135–136). In contrast to this and to the Notre Dame like “sketches” of an individual described in Chapter 1 of the present book, that which marks an individual in the above account of the relation between matter and memory is perpetual and durational becoming and this could be enhanced in education. For that to happen, though, Roy (2019) notes that one must “negate all category in order to continuously enter becoming, otherwise one is frozen in time – a patterned immobility among many others” (ibid:141). This could incite a much greater carefulness when trying

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to account for individual children, pupils and students and teachers in education, and rather than dressing them in “one-size that fits all”, there could be attention paid to their continuous and ongoing transformation. From the account above, it is also clear that the individual cannot be accounted for by appealing to hers/his capacity to reflect upon her/himself. As both Lombard (1997:123) and Mossé-Bastide (1955:201) note, that kind of reflection was precisely what Bergson tried to escape: reflection is rather directed outwards. This could challenge the disconnected individual self-reflection that frequently occurs in our contemporary situation. Rather than encouraging only reflection upon one self ’s speech and thought and even though encouraging more personal memories, children, pupils and students could be encouraged to reflect outwards and upon “things in the world” to a much larger extent. But the impossibility of accounting for an individual through psychological “states” was also clearly seen in how perception, affection and memory are intertwined and act “in solidarity” and with mutual support from each other. And it was further seen in how language-learning concerns leaping outside oneself into “the conceptual orbit of the speaker, through a leap into meaning-receptivity in general” (Grosz 2004:180). The individual body is, then, also profoundly intertwined with other bodies – even the individual brain of a person cannot be said to be disconnected “from the organism which nourishes it, from the atmosphere in which the organism breathes, from the earth which that atmosphere envelopes, from the sun around which the earth revolves” (Bergson 1991/1896:24). What flows through and unites the individual body with other bodies is durational time. Even though duration is always someone’s duration also matter and things in the world, as shown above, have a duration of their own – there are different and intertwined durational processes, each with their own tension of duration. In light of this, the dualism between Individual and Society established within abstract formalist accounts of education could be rethought. Duration and this more profound relationality at stake in ourselves, as well as in our encounters with others and other things in the world could incite and invite education to rethink both Individual and Society no longer in terms of “things” and “entities” that “communicate”, but rather as already intertwined and indivisible durational processes. Both Individual and Society could be considered without “cutting them up” in separated and static (psychological and/or sociological) “states”. Instead, they can be seen as continuous, intertwined and transforming processes that due to the constant flow of past into present and future are open not only to critique but also to change. For Bergson, becoming concerns the continuously evolving being of both “us” and “things”, and as Elizabeth Grosz states: “Bergson’s project can be understood to be the transformation of the concept of being through the generation of an ontology of becoming” (Grosz 2005:10). And even though the account above concerns complex metaphysical thought, it may inspire education to both

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differentiate and converge the “outposts” in aesthetical and ethical dualisms. It would, for instance, be of value to discern when and in what ways we are speaking of perception and memory in education. Just as it would be of value to discern when and in what ways we speak of the individual and society in education. Obviously, and as will be seen in the next parts of the present book, such discernment is not new – these are some of the most fundamental issues in education and pedagogy. But in addition to what is already going on in education and pedagogy it would perhaps also be of value to consider how duration and the features of a continuously becoming being may be what underlies, continually transform, and converge both “outposts” in both dualisms in education. It may also be of value to explore how this could be enhanced in education through an appeal to a method of intuition. In The Creative Mind, Bergson (1934/2007) formulates nine postulates that identify the principles of the method of intuition and that could well serve as guiding principles also for any educational setting interested in that which intuition can bring about: 1. “There is an external reality which is given immediately to our mind”. 2. “This reality is mobility”. 3. “Our intelligence, when it follows its natural inclinations, proceeds by solid perceptions on the one hand, and by stable conceptions on the other”. 4. “it is understood that fixed concepts can be extracted by our thought from the mobile reality; but there is no means whatever of reconstituting with the fixity of concepts the mobility of the real”. 5. “The demonstrations which have been given of the relativity of our knowledge are therefore tainted with an original vice: they assume, like the dogmatism they attack, that all knowledge must necessarily start from rigidly defined concepts in order to grasp by their means the flowing reality”. 6. “To philosophize means to reverse the normal direction of the workings of thought”. 7. “one of the objects of metaphysics is to operate differentiations and qualitative integrations”. 8. “Relative is symbolic knowledge through pre-existing concepts, which goes from the fixed to the moving, but not so intuitive knowledge which establishes itself in the moving reality and adopts the life of things”. 9. “In the living mobility of things, the understanding undertakes to mark out real or virtual stations, it notes arrivals and departures; that is all that is important to the thought of man in its natural exercise. But philosophy should be an effort to go beyond the human state”. (Bergson 1934/2007:158–163, emphasis added in point 9) These nine postulates summarize what so far has been said about intuition both as a method and as something that provokes “alternative” conceptions of real and becoming aspects of educational experiences and events. As stated by de Freitas & Ferrara (2015), Bergson’s method was not only intended for philosophers and scientists but was also conceived “as a way to live, and a way to be creatively and responsively plugged into the world” (De Freitas & Ferrara 2015:566). This is

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also what they show in the above-mentioned explorations in the mathematics classroom where the method of intuition permits us to recognize and transform the habitual ways of conceiving both children and mathematics. But they also, by paying attention to how children too “tap into the ‘intuitive method’” (ibid:584), show how the method of intuition could be an important part of learning mathematics in everyday educational life through an engagement in the mobility and encounter of both matter and mind. Before leaving Matter and Memory (1896/1991) and proceeding to the next part of the present attempt to account for Bergson’s method of intuition as well as for “alternative” conceptions of real, becoming and free educational experiences and events, there is yet another issue that is of importance. As a testimony to how closely related, and yet still distinct, all of Bergson’s major works are, the very last words of Matter and Memory (1896/1991) concern the respective freedom that matter and mind display. Here, mind or spirit is finally said to have a larger degree of freedom than matter, a freedom that it nevertheless gives back to matter in the joint act of perception and memory: Spirit borrows from matter the perceptions on which it feeds and restores them to matter in the form of movements which it has stamped with its own freedom. (Bergson 1896/1991:249) Perhaps, then, as we are in this chapter travelling in a reversed order – from Bergson’s last major work to his first – the larger degree of freedom attributed to spirit and mind by the end of the Matter and Memory (1896/1991) is a trace of something that has preceded it and that still is kept “alive”: the question of the freedom and free will of human beings. It is to this question and to the very first of Bergson’s major works that we now, in the last part of this chapter, turn.

Thinking in Duration: Freedom “the Clearest and Simplest Thing in the World”24 As seen above, thinking in duration is a condition for approaching any kind of “alternative” conceptions of real and becoming aspects of educational experiences and events. This is also the case when it comes to free aspects of these and particularly when it comes to the freedom and free will of human beings involved in education – those who live, breathe, act and think in educational experiences and events. However, an important distinction must be made already here. Bergson treats the notions of freedom and free will in a specific way – he places his own account midway between philosophical accounts of freedom as a moral problem and free will as a problem of self-determination: The word freedom has for me a sense intermediate between those that one usually gives to the two terms freedom [liberté] and free will [libre arbitre].

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On the one hand, I think that freedom consists in being entirely oneself, in acting in conformity with oneself: this would therefore be the ‘moral freedom’ of the philosophers, the independence of the person with regards to all that it is not. But it is not exactly this sort of freedom, since the independence I describe does not have a moral character. Moreover, it does not consist in depending on oneself as an effect depends on the cause that determines it necessarily. In this way, I would come back to the sense of ‘free will’. And yet I do not accept this sense completely either, since free will, in the usual sense of the term, implies the equal possibility of two contraries, and since it is not possible, I claim, to formulate or even conceive the thesis of the equal possibility of two contraries without serious misunderstandings concerning the nature of time. I could say therefore that the point of my thesis, on this particular issue, was precisely to find an intermediate position between ‘moral freedom’ and free will. (Bergson as cited in Sinclair 2020:78, original emphasis) Underlying this mid-way navigation between freedom and free will, is, then, Bergson’s take on the nature of time, and duration. And, more specifically, duration as expressed both in and by the world and the subject where transformation and change of both us and the world is one primary condition. Bergson’s concept of freedom and free will does not, then, pertain so much to the human being per se as to the acts that the human being performs in the world. In contrast to traditional accounts of volition, the free act is by Bergson not reduced to conception, deliberation, decision and execution where “the mind waits for the free act to have unfolded all of its mental episodes instead of seizing, live, as it were, their concrete immanence” ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:50). As seen in the account of the political dimension of education in the introduction and the first chapter of the present book, educational experiences and events are forced into an order of time where Past, Present and Future are divided and distributed in a chronology that creates both oblivion of and a widened gap between these. But it is also precisely this account of time that reduces freedom and free will to a question of conception, deliberation, decision and execution – it creates the retrospective illusion of choice: At all times, in fact, humans have believed they could discern the signature of freedom in the moment of choice, i.e. of discursive deliberation. Yet deliberation now seems to us to be a posthumous legalization, a useless formality we superstitiously perform when confronted with the accomplished fact. ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:53) Freedom and free will for Bergson, however, rather concerns and is expressed in the character of singular acts coloured by the whole durational process and quality that an individual, and equally singular, human being carries with it into

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the act. This occurs not through rational choice and deliberation by an unchanging stable human mind, but is rather the effects of a durational process that gives freedom and free will, just as the subject, a unique colour anew again and again: [Freedom] is, then, the character of an act whose cause, irreducible to all external determination or to an isolated motive, is the totality of a singular durational reality. Freedom exists but in singular acts, related to a subject that itself is singular, and not to a general power to decide in an autonomous fashion; the irreducibility of these acts to all determinist explication comes from the singular duration of this subject itself (…) The free act is, then, the act produced by the duration of a self, of which the content can only be found by it alone and in retrospection.25 (Worms 2013b:61, my translation)26 Bergson’s argument that holds together duration, freedom and free will may, then, create an alternative to both the way Past, Present and Future is neglected and divided in a political dimension of contemporary education, and the way freedom is currently omitted in education. The arguments that Bergson makes for thinking in duration and for freedom and free will are in the remaining parts of this chapter further described. It is in Bergson’s first major work Time and Free Will – An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013) that duration and the problem of freedom are treated in the above-described fashion. The book begins with a preface where the critique of the spatialization of time in thought and language for the first time is formulated: We necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by side in space phenomena which do not occupy space, and whether, by merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end (…) The problem which I have chosen is common to metaphysics and psychology, the problem of free will. What I attempt to prove is that all discussion between determinists and their opponents implies a previous confusion of duration with extensity, of succession with simultaneity, of quality with quantity: this confusion once dispelled, we may perhaps witness the objections raised against free will, of the definitions given of it, and, in a certain sense, of the problem of free will itself. (Bergson 1889/2013:xxiii-xxiv)

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Not only does this opening concern the critique of the spatialization of time, but already here, in this concentrated preface, the fundamental problem that will become the centre of a major philosophical oeuvre is, at least, suggested: the negative and the positive aspects of the thesis that “time is not space” (Worms 2013a:29–32, 35). This thesis is the centre of the book, quite literally, as it is in the middle of the book that the full problem is revealed – it is here that duration is introduced, followed by the last part of the book where the question of freedom and free will is thoroughly treated. 27 The book, in fact, begins with and follows the order of the three-folded confusion indicated in the preface and the quote above: of quality with quantity, of succession with simultaneity, and of duration with extensity. Perhaps more than in any of the other major works, and with the distinction made above, these “confused couples” are treated as they are experienced and expressed by a singular living human being (Worms 2013a:35). As earlier said, the whole first chapter of Time and Free Will – An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013) is dedicated to revealing how qualitative phenomena such as psychological states, feelings, sensations of muscular effort and even the experience and perception of colours must be thought qualitatively rather than quantitatively. The first chapter explores this in yet another admirable empirical investigation mirrored in the very title of the chapter: “The intensity of psychic states”. These “states”, just as in Bergson’s later major works Matter and Memory (1896/1991) and Creative Evolution (1907/2007), are not considered as stagnated or entirely separated. Just as with matter and memory and as with instinct and intelligence, psychic states – from love and hatred to sensations of sound, weight and light – are seen as interpenetrating: they flow into each other, and they are of a qualitative rather than a quantitative character. Quantities on the other hand, and particularly numbers, constitute the theme in the beginning of the second chapter of Time and Free Will – An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013) and are here described as pertaining to a confusion and a belief that we count abstractedly and with adequate symbols in time, while the addition of unit to unit at the base of counting is in fact performed in space: “We involuntarily fix at a point in space each of the moments which we count, and it is only on this condition that the abstract unit come to form a sum” (Bergson 1889/2013:79). However, “everything is not counted in the same way” (ibid:85) – to count material objects is one thing, and here number has a direct function, but to count affective states is another thing, here, and since they in our inner life interpenetrate and flow into one another, we take recourse to space in an indirect way through symbolic representation (ibid:89). It is precisely this that alters qualitative experiences and turns them into quantitative units – time here becomes nothing more or different than space and our qualitative experiences become timeless units added to units in a quantitative logic.28

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It is this “mistake” that Bergson tries to address by introducing duration in the middle of Chapter 2 and the book.29 Here, two different conceptions of time are identified and introduced: There are, indeed, as we shall show a little later, two possible conceptions of time, the one free from all alloy, the other surreptitiously bringing in the idea of space. Pure duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states (…) but forms both the past and the present states into an organic whole, as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melting, so to speak, into one another. Might it not be said that, even if these notes succeed one another, yet we perceive them in one another, and that their totality may be compared to a living being whose parts, although distinct, permeate one another just because they are so closely connected? The proof is that, if we interrupt the rhythm by dwelling longer than is right on one note of the tune, it is not its exaggerated length, as length, which will warn us of our mistake, but the qualitative change thereby caused in the whole of the musical phrase. (Bergson 1889/2013:100–101, original emphasis) Already here, in the first major work, music serves as the paradigmatic example for Bergson: it is here a question of “letting the ego live” in a more profound way and of resisting any attempts to through language and/or social convenience discern either temporal or affective “states” that succeed each other in space. Instead, there is a need for considering these as simultaneous and interpenetrating in a durational movement of time. It is a question of discerning, again, the double condition of our life, perhaps here even our “two lives” – one pertaining to space and the other to duration. Duration, any time it is mixed up with space, is mistakenly conceived as homogenous and numerical time, but below this spatialized notion of time and below our adaptations to language and social convenience, durational time flows through and gathers heterogenous moments that continuously “melt into one another” in an organic whole: Below homogenous duration, which is the extensive symbol of true duration, a close psychological analysis distinguishes a duration whose heterogenous moments permeate one another; below the numerical multiplicity of conscious states, a qualitative multiplicity; below the self with well-defined states, a self in which succeeding each other means melting into one another and forming an organic whole. (Bergson 1889/2013:128, original emphasis) Concrete duration and abstract time are, then, as Bergson states, “two very different things” (Bergson 1889/2013:155) and language is indeed, when treated within a spatialized notion, a hinder to any conception of concrete duration and

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“the rhythmic organization of the whole” (Bergson/1889/2013:106). Social convention adds to this linguistic obstacle as experiences and events in such rhythmic organization of “the whole” often come forward as more “confused” and less desirable than the clear rationality that marks spatial conceptions of time: In other words, our perceptions, sensations, emotions and ideas occur under two aspects: the one clear and precise, but impersonal; the other confused, ever changing, and inexpressible, because language cannot get hold of it without arresting its mobility or fit it into common-place forms without making it into public property. (Bergson 1889/2013:129) As with mechanist-finalist traditions in Creative Evolution (1907/2007), and realist-­idealist as well as empiricist-rationalist traditions in Matter and Memory (1896/1991), also this preceding book addresses two “dualistic outposts”. Not only through addressing time and space as indicated above in terms of the two outposts of our “two lives”, but also in the very theme and problematic chosen for this first major work: freedom and free will. This time, and as seen in the introductory quote from the preface above, the two “extreme points” that Bergson navigates are the ones of determinism and libertarianism. By means of duration Bergson aims to defend freedom and free will, denied by the determinist position, but also to protect freedom and free will from any too absolute spontaneity assumed by the opposite libertarian position. For the determinist, antecedent causes are always followed by the same effects – in that sense freedom and free will is something that is governed and suppressed by necessity. This goes both for the external world and for the human subject. Psychological determinism is, as Bergson convincingly shows, at the bottom, a physiological determinism and it implies an associationism (Bergson 1889/2013:155) which already here in this first major work is related to the confusion of the physiological functioning of the brain with the mind (ibid:146). Now, just as with the critique of mechanist explanations of causes in the account of creative evolution, also here in this first major work, the idea that an antecedent state leads to the next one is both affirmed and questioned: “we shall willingly admit that there always is some relation between the existing state of consciousness and any new state to which consciousness passes. But is this relation, which explains the transition, the cause of it?” (ibid: 156). The libertarian view considers the human being as an exception to the way causes produce the same effects in physical and physiological phenomena, as there is a variety of options to be chosen by the human being – in that sense freedom and free will to make different choices between equally possible alternatives is abundant. Having chosen one option does not exclude the possibility of another one having been chosen instead and the results would in each case have been different. Rather than being exposed to mechanical necessity the human being can, according to the libertarian view, use its consciousness of

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having free will both to speculate on the many possible ways to take and the way that is taken as being only one of several and different ways. It concerns both “the anticipation of what we might do and the recollection of some other decision which we might have taken” (Bergson 1889/2013:173), and even though Bergson might be said to be more closely affiliated with a libertarian tradition,30 the question that he here evokes concerns “in what sense the ego perceives itself as a determining cause” (Bergson 1889/2013:174) – is the ego that chooses and the ego that retrospectively reflects really the same? For Bergson, even though building his own account of free will and freedom upon both positions, they are still unsatisfactory. Not least because neither considers the human being as a durational subject that continuously becomes and transforms. As stated by Elizabeth Grosz: “Both libertarians and determinists share the belief that the subject is the same subject, the same entity, before and after the alternatives have been posed and one chosen; the subject, even after choosing a particular course, could review that course and either it would make the same choice again in precisely the same way (the determinist position) or could make a different choice, even in the same circumstances (the libertarian position)” (Grosz 2010:144). For Bergson, then, both positions treat the question of freedom and free will in a spatialized manner and without regard to the durational and becoming aspects of the living human being: All the difficulty arises from the fact that both parties picture the deliberation under the form of an oscillation in space, while it really consists in a dynamic progress in which the self and its motives, like real living beings, are in a constant state of becoming. (Bergson 1889/2013:183) The question of freedom and the human beings’ free will is not sufficiently accounted for by these positions because they place the question of freedom and free will within the idea of time as a spatial chronological line, while “time is not a line along which one can pass again” (Bergson 1889/2013:181). Again, such a line can only symbolize time that has passed, and it is, according to Bergson, precisely this that both determinist and libertarian accounts of freedom and free will forget: Defenders and opponents of free will alike forget this – the former when they assert, and the latter when they deny the possibility of acting differently from what we have done. The former reason thus: ‘The path is not yet traced out, therefore it may take any direction whatever’. To which the answer is: ‘You forget that it is not possible to speak of a path till the action is performed: but then will it have been traced out.’ The latter say: ‘The path has been traced out in such and such a way: therefore its possible direction was not any direction whatever, but only this one direction.’ To which the answer is: ‘Before the path was traced out there was no

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direction, either possible or impossible, for the very simple reason that there could not yet be any question of a path. (Bergson 1889/2013:182) Bergson claims that these respective positions, if not qualified, end up in stagnated circular arguments, the determinist position expressed in the argument: “The act once performed is performed” and the libertarian position expressed in the argument: “The act, before being performed, was not yet performed” (ibid:182). For Bergson, freedom must instead “be sought in a certain shade or quality of the action itself and not in the relation of this act to what it is not or to what it might have been” (ibid:182–183). This is, then, certainly not determinism, but neither is it, as Marc Sinclair points out, “simply the soft-determinist, compatibilist position, according to which freedom requires the power or ability to do what the agent wills or desires” and where “self-determination is compatible with freedom; an act needs only to be caused internally, by the self and its desires, in order to be free” (Sinclair 2020:74). As Sinclair notes, Bergson is not in his treatment of freedom and free will “in the business of thought experiments” (ibid:75) – it is the concrete and free act itself that is at the centre of attention. The question of freedom and free will must, then, rather than being considered only by and in relation to a conscious mind, be treated as an act that pertains to a perfectly real but changing and transforming human subject. As stated by Elizabeth Grosz: “Acts are free insofar as they express and resemble the subject, not insofar as the subject is always the same, an essence, an identity but insofar as the subject is transformed by and engaged through its acts becomes through its acts (…) Free acts are those which both express us and which transform us, which express our transforming (…) Freedom is thus not primarily a capacity of mind but of body: it is linked to the body’s capacity for movement, and thus its multiple possibilities of action” (Grosz 2010:146–152). In relation to this, and as said above, Bergson presents the free act as one that is coloured by “our whole personality” – something which he also claims is visible in the work of an artist: In short, we are free when our acts spring from our whole personality, when they express it, when they have that indefinable resemblance to it which one sometimes finds between the artist and his work. (Bergson 1889/2013:172) Freedom, however, just as in Creative Evolution (1907/2007) and Matter and Memory (1896/1991), is not “absolute” and here Bergson takes yet another stance against an all too “radical libertarianism” – freedom “admits of degrees” (Bergson 1889/2013:166). It depends upon the degree to which the ego is allowed to live and act from what Bergson calls a “profound” rather than a “superficial” self that by necessity acts in accordance with language and social convenience. The “two lives”, then, are also represented by two “selves” one more profound belonging

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to duration, and one more superficial, belonging to space, and just because the latter is so overwhelmingly accentuated in our lives, we are, in fact, rarely free: Hence there are finally two different selves, one of which is, as it were, the external projection of the other, its spatial and, so to speak, social representation. We reach the former by deep introspection, which leads us to grasp our inner states as living things, constantly becoming, as states not amenable to measure, which permeate one another and of which the succession in duration has nothing to do with juxtaposition in homogenous space. But the moments at which we thus grasp ourselves are rare, and that is just why we are rarely free. The greater part of the time we live outside ourselves, hardly perceiving anything of ourselves but our own ghost, a colourless shadow which pure duration projects into homogenous space. Hence our life unfolds in space rather than in time; we live for the external world rather than four ourselves; we speak rather than think; we ‘are acted’ rather than act ourselves. To act freely is to recover possession of oneself, and to get back into pure duration. (Bergson 1889/2013:231–232, original emphasis) Freedom, then, is “tricky business”, and in one sense even indefinable: “Freedom is the relation of the concrete self to the act it performs. This relation is indefinable, just because we are free” (Bergson 1889/2013:219, original emphasis). Freedom is, however, also and in contrast to both determinist and libertarian positions a positivity – it is indeterminacy, innovation and invention (Grosz 2010). As Vladimir Jankélévitch states: Freedom is not a negative exception in the tracks of determinism; it is creative positivity. It does not modify the arrangements of the parts but delivers matter by way of a revolutionary decision. The human being is all freedom, as it is all becoming. It is a freedom on two legs that comes, that goes, that talks, and that breathes. ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:49) If accepting that time is not space and that duration as well as freedom and free will pertains to this positivity, freedom is “the clearest and simplest thing in the world” ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:25); it is “a fact, and among the facts which we observe there is none clearer” (Bergson 1889/2013:221). And that “observation” may be performed through intuition – it is intuition that can access freedom as a clear fact. Despite the tricky and somewhat indefinable character of freedom, Bergson does, then, insist and believe that we can have an experience of being free. This occurs when our acts and thoughts – our whole personality – coincide in the immediate data of consciousness. Intuition is the mode of knowledge most closely related to such immediacy and is thus also the mode of access to having an experience of freedom. Intuition, as recalled in the accounts of evolution,

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matter and memory above, is an attempt to challenge the intellectual knowledge we think we have of ourselves and the world, but it is also an alternative mode of knowledge. This alternative mode of knowledge is, then, activated also in the problem of freedom and free will. If following Bergson’s (1904–05/2017) lectures at the Collège de France on the evolution of the problem of freedom, it becomes clear that it concerns precisely the very relation between intelligence and intuition, and more specifically, intuition as it is expressed in our immediate consciousness of our actions in the world: Freedom is a certain character inherent to our action, as it appears to us immediately, as it is given to us through our immediate consciousness. We want something and, inside this will, immanent to this will so to speak, there is a sentiment of freedom. So, freedom is a certain real or apparent feeling given by immediate consciousness when will acts. On the other hand, if there is a problem of freedom – and there is a problem of freedom – it is evidently because reflection intervenes and that this problem is not posed by reflective thought. So, the problem of freedom is evidently a problem that is born and surfaces in the presence of immediate consciousness and reflective thought. That is how we will define it: it is the problem that our action poses to our speculation. But why does action pose a problem to speculation? It is probably because they can’t get along.31 (Bergson 1904–05/2017:17, my translation) So, again, we see that intelligence and intuition, this time in relation to the problem of freedom, seem to obey two different orders, and as Bergson expresses it: they don’t seem to get along at all. Moreover, it is to the side of intuition, understood as co-existent and contemporaneous with willed action, and not to the side of intelligence that freedom belongs: We’ll say that freedom is given in an intuition, that it is co-extensive with action: it is action finding itself in it’s fulfilling. We’ll never reach this intuition by departing from reflection, and we could, by repeating a famous saying, state that the one who looks for freedom will never find it (…) one has to install one-self in it, one has to depart from action fulfilling itself.32 (Bergson 1904–05/2017:69, my translation) Freedom, then, will never be accessed or obtained only through reflective thought, but rather through following the course of intuition in its co-existence with willed actions fulfilling themselves in duration. Not only duration but also intuition and the problem of freedom may, in fact, be what connect all of Bergson’s major works together. Perhaps it is not by accident that his work begins and ends on that note. When Bergson in The Creative Mind (1934/2007) ponders upon his own process he states (and perhaps here testifying to his libertarian preferences!) that even though there were many other problems to pursue in

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the exploration of duration and intuition,33 he chose the problem of freedom (Bergson 1934/2007:15). As with Bergson’s “alternative” conceptions of real and becoming aspects of us and the world, also his “alternative” notion of freedom and free will does have some resonances in education. Freedom, as said in the introduction and the first chapter of the present book, seems to be suppressed and even omitted in the contemporary educational situation. But according to the above “it is never too late” so to speak and even in the most rigid and harshest of situations there is still the potential for duration, intuition and free acts in the world (Grosz 2010:154). Below Bergson’s alternative conception of duration, intuition and freedom are joined with education and resonances between these are further explored. •

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It may now be a bit clearer why abstract formalism at all costs wants to prevent freedom; as it is built upon and nourishes itself mainly on reflective and discursive thought, intuition and the freedom that may occur from acting and willing “freely” must be reduced, suppressed and even omitted. But an appeal to duration, intuition and freedom could incite and invite education to pay close attention to how in the midst of this, singular human acts are still expressing the specific coloration of equally singular persons as they “freely” transform both the world and their person. This is something that educational scholars Peter Roberts and Herner Saeverot (2018) pay attention to as they state that “the conception of time is crucial as to whether the students loose or gain freedom” (Roberts & Saeverot 2018:103). It is durational, and not spatial, time that can give access to freedom and it is within the first that teaching should be placed, if so only for students to be able to appear as “subjects of time” (ibid:105). But more so, paying attention to and installing oneself as a teacher in durational time is a question of a particular adaptation of education to the time, or rhythm, of students and that is something that, according to Roberts & Saeverot (2018), pertains to tenderness: “Tenderness may have nothing to do with knowledge; one can easily imagine a knowledgeable person who is not necessarily tender. Tenderness is not a technique or method of which all can begin to use. Tenderness does not have its origins in rules, habits or established practices. Tenderness is first and foremost about being able to adjust oneself to the time of the other” (ibid:104). With time, and especially durational time, comes, then, not only the potential of freedom in education but also a specific attitude and sensitivity towards children, pupils and students. Considering the definition of freedom and free will given above, education could complement the intelligent and discursive mode of knowledge by appealing also to intuition and to children, pupils, and students’ singular fulfilment of willed acts. It would here be a question of paying attention to such joint acts and thoughts through “installing oneself ” in these rather than only discursively and “intelligently” account for them. This could incite both teachers and researchers to try to come closer to children, pupils

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and students, to get to know them better, as they continuously transform, and to together with them create opportunities for more profound selves to be expressed in education. This, however, would demand utmost carefulness, not the least as the profound self today seems to have become hi-jacked by the superficial self. In relation to fabulation and the disconnected self-­ reflection accounted for in the ethical dimension of education, such “self-­ expression” would rather than focusing on the subject per se (as free or not free), instead focus on how singular acts may express and carry with them different degrees of freedom. It is, then, in no way a question of a determinist account and reduction of freedom, but neither an all too spontaneous libertarian appeal to limitless freedom where children, pupils and students may do whatever they desire. This is also something that both Lombard (1997:79–86) and Mossé-Bastide (1955:202–204) evoke in their close readings of Bergson’s thoughts on education: education cannot ignore children’s desires and interests, but neither can it make them the only departure-­point, formation and aim of education – there is always something more at stake in education, something that pertains to effort. This will be seen in the next part of this book; an essential thing with education and the role of the teacher is to demand an effort from children, pupils and students. In addition to his considering the child as a “seeker” and “inventor” Bergson states that he repudiates facility and values effort (Bergson 1934/2007:69). It is, then, not a question of freedom where “anything goes”, but rather a question of the freedom to be fully engaged, with one’s whole body and mind, in fulfilled and willed acts in education that may change and transform both oneself and the world. Here, Bergson again expresses himself directly in the educational question and claims that even “the most authoritative education would not curtail any of our freedom if it only imparted to us ideas and feelings capable of impregnating the whole soul. It is the whole soul, in fact, which gives rise to the free decision: and the act will be so much the freer the more the dynamic series with which it is connected tends to be the fundamental self ” (Bergson 1889/2013:167). This mid-way navigation between determinism and libertarianism and the importance of effort is also something that Danilo Melo (2019) picks up in a suggestion of a Bergson-inspired “pedagogy of movement” that is far from being either “a set of techniques” or pure “spontaneity”, but rather concerning “a pedagogy of problematics, of intellectual work, of effort” (Melo 2019:2).34 It is, though, an appeal to acknowledging will so that education “becomes a creative process by restoring to thought the innovative movement of ideas, perceptions and feelings that daily life and domesticating education insist on paralyzing through conformity and automatism” (ibid). Will is directed towards the future and a “pedagogy of movement” implies “an education geared to the future, driven by the desire to invent other forms of thinking, feeling, seeing and acting in the world, and which as such invests its practices in the exercise of the will” (ibid). There are, however, obstacles to overcome for will and a pedagogy of

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movement to enter education, something which Mossé-Bastide (1955) also confirms; it is not so much about trust in an élan vital as it is about removing obstacles. Melo too connects Bergson’s notion of will to the notions of the élan vital, to action and to the various degrees of tension displayed in our memories. A “slackened” or interrupted élan and/or relaxed tension in our memories may, Melo argues, create a hinder to learning, and so may, with reference to Lombard (1997), conformity, habits, an “automatism of thought” and linguistic conventions (Melo 2019:6–7). Effort, then, is needed for any form of creation and for “thinking what has not been thought and learning what is not known” (ibid:7) and the removal of obstacles to such thinking and learning is necessary for a pedagogy of movement to occur: “It is therefore about eliminating ideas that are ready-made and congealed by language to make room for ideas that are made in the heat and mobility of life”. There is need for a “pedagogical ethics” that “evaluate, select and eliminate everything that constitutes an obstacle to the awakening of the will in education” (ibid:11). And that may include an all too conventional and determinist idea of knowledge as “creative education is that in which, through its subjects and activities, the liberating dimension prevails over the urgency of knowledge” (ibid:12). The above-described engagement in free acts in education and Melo’s (2019) recognition of the obstacles to will and to a liberating education demand careful attention towards social and linguistic conventions. Languages of “critique” and discourses performed on education by “intelligent men”, all run by a spatialized idea of time and freedom, need to be met not only with resistance and counter-critique but also by the creation and innovation of alternatives that make freedom “a clear fact” with benefits that are visible. Elizabeth Grosz (2010) prolongs Bergson’s reasoning on duration, freedom and free will into concerning a notion of freedom to. Rather than only posing the question of freedom outside the subject in “outer arrangements” and in terms of freedom from – however important this is – the question could also be posed as a freedom to “where freedom is conceived not only or primarily as the elimination of constraint or coercion but more positively as the condition of, or capacity for, action in life” (Grosz 2010:140). Grosz here poses the following question in relation to feminist theory: “Is feminist theory best served through its traditional focus on women’s attainment of a freedom from patriarchal, racist, colonialist, and heteronormative constraint? Or by exploring what the female – or feminist – subject is and is capable of making and doing?” (Grosz 2010:141). That question may be of importance also in education and both educands and educators may benefit from such a question. This is of course not a denial of the importance of all efforts to make visible and resist structures that women, educands and educators need to be freed from, but attention paid to what they in the name of freedom to, actually and potentially can make and do, may be just as important. Within the positive aspects of both duration and freedom given above, education could pay

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particular attention to how women, children, pupils and students may partake and engage in indeterminacy, innovation and invention in educational experiences and events. For any of the above to be feasible at all, there is a need for education to reconsider time, and especially the spatialization of time that makes of it a homogenous and numerical medium. Abstract formalism in the contemporary educational situation is driven by precisely that definition of time, and it is this that creates not only a neglect of aesthetical and ethical dimensions but also of a political dimension in education. Here, not only must the oblivion of the historical foundation of education be challenged, but also retrospective nostalgia and prospective utopia need to be redefined. And all this without falling into any simple form of “presentism”. It is duration as the seamless process of Past flowing into Present and Future that may present such a challenge and re-definition. In duration, the past no longer determines the present or the future of either objects or subjects, but it does present an endless source of potential re-invention of these. As stated by Elizabeth Grosz (2004): “This is indeed the primary political relevance of the past: it is that which can be more or less endlessly revived, dynamized, revivified (…) It is the inexhaustible condition not just of an affirmation of the present but also of its criticism and transformation. Politics is nothing but the attempt to reactivate that potential, or virtual, of the past so that a divergence or differentiation from the present is possible” (Grosz 2004:178). An alternative notion of freedom, then, resides in this metaphysical and political notion of time, and as such it could well join the classical foundation of education, expressed in the notion of scholé - free time, to make it embrace the durational, intuitive fulfilling of willed acts that transform both ourselves and the world.

If it is in such acts and on the side of duration and intuition that freedom finds its expressions, then, and especially in the current educational situation, this is one more reason for this organic notion of time and for intuition to be highlighted and underscored. It needs to be allowed to work side by side with clock time and intelligence. As stated in the introduction to this book: education and pedagogy take place right on the border of thought and action, they scent of freedom and they are of a contextual, complex and relational character where causal explanations often fall short. It seems, then, that intuition, duration and the notion of free and willed acts fulfilling themselves beyond both determinism and libertarianism, present a fruitful alternative notion of free aspects of educational experiences and events.

Freedom Comes with Problems and Problems Come with Freedom All said above on “alternative” conceptions of real, becoming and free educational experiences and events must not imply the setting up of yet other oppositional and permanent dualisms; we need as much intelligence – as said in Chapter 1, not the

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least for being able to get up in the morning, make coffee and get dressed – as we need intuition. Therefore, and as indicated above, intuition needs to be accompanied by intelligence in the quest for real (and the other way around as reality itself carries this double feature), becoming needs to be considered as part of an interpenetrating being (and vice versa as they come together in perception and memory), and this “double condition” is particularly important when approaching the problem of freedom. Here, the ethical imperative to both discern and join the dualist order of any problem confronted comes back. Here, by the end of this chapter and part of the book, it is necessary to return to the beginning of the chapter and at the same time to the last of Bergson’s major works The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932/1977), and there is again need for the most careful of navigations in the ethics of dualisms. Not the least as freedom being “the clearest and simplest thing in the world” ( Jankélévitch 1959/2015:25) really doesn’t seem to be the case for the many put under the multiple atrocities that throughout history and in our contemporary situation severely reduce any kind of free will and act. We may like the idea that freedom on the border of action and thought is the simplest and clearest thing in the world, however, not only history but also the current educational and global situation tell us, forcefully and painfully, that this is not always the case. Still, and as noted by Elizabet Grosz (2010), it is important to not give up on the idea of freedom to make and invent ourselves and the world anew. As said, even in the harshest of situations, such potential may still be there: It is perfectly obvious that a freedom to create, to make, or to produce is a luxury that can be attained only with a certain level of the absence of constraint. However, even in the most extreme cases of slavery and in situations of political or natural catastrophe of the kinds globally experienced in recent years, there is always a small space for innovation and not simply reaction. What remains remarkable about genocidal struggles, the horrors of long-term incarceration, concentration camps, prisoner of war camps, and the prospects of long-term social coexistence in situations of natural and social catastrophe is the inventiveness of the activities of the constrained – the flourishing of minor and hidden arts and literature, technologies and instruments, networks of communication, and the transmission of information. What is most striking about the extreme situations of constraint, those which require a ‘freedom from,’ is that they do not eliminate a ‘freedom to’ but only complicate it. (Grosz 2010:154, n. 1) Importantly though, if there is any serious meaning to joining thought and act both sides of the story and the thing really do need to be acknowledged – freedom from and freedom to is both needed. Just as oscillation between alternatives may be both “infernal” (Debaise & Stengers 2016) and progressive (Bergson 1932/1977:299), and mythmaking and fabulation may be both illusionary and

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protective of the real and of the individual and society (Bergson 1932/1977:119). Moreover, it would of course be outrageous to claim that no rational deliberation is needed in front of the many demanding ethical and moral issues that pertains to the problem of freedom. Obviously, deliberation and careful discursive reflection and reasoning upon our choices is essential not only for the individual but also for society, perhaps especially in education. As Bergson states concerning teaching and morality: We do not deny the utility, the necessity even, of a moral instruction which appeals to reason alone, defining duties and connecting them with a principle of which it follows out in detail the various applications. It is on the plane of intelligence, and on that plane alone, that discussion is possible, and there is no complete morality without reflexion, analysis and arguments with others as well as with oneself. (Bergson 1932/1977:97) Still, just as teachers sense the difficulty to, as Bergson says, “inculcate morality into their pupils instead of merely talking about it” as well as the difficulty to rise above moral education through “impersonal training” of habit (ibid), there is something pertaining to freedom and the moral matters it evokes in education that demands more than “discursive deliberation”. Something that, according to Bergson, concerns the evolution of bare Life itself, of which morality and habit “are but manifestations” (ibid:100) and which may be accessed through intuition rather than rational discursive deliberation. The question of morality in education is by Bergson treated without giving any recipes or defined methods for how to proceed, and yet it is at the centre as a decisive problem for the entire educational effort. Not as a subject-matter to be taught, but rather as a problem in relation to which the whole idea of education and its role in society must be formulated (Lombard 1997; Mossé-Bastide 1955). Moreover, and as earlier said, if the important thing with problems is their invention and the way they are stated, this goes to say that there is something fundamentally creative about the stating of problems – they are not once and for all given, but always open to re-interpretation and re-formulation. This is visible not the least in how the problem of freedom itself has developed throughout history. In his lectures at the Collège de France 1904–1905, Bergson describes how the problem of freedom has occurred through three “irruptions” and “explosions” throughout history: (1) in the Socratic era (with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), (2) in the Middle Ages (with Christianism, Judaism and Descartes), and (3) at the time of the French Revolution (with Rousseau and Kant). Furthermore, these “irruptions” and “explosions” are, as Bergson shows, not possible to disconnect from socio-political circumstances and events; and even though the “irruptions” of freedom never are provoked by science or philosophy (Bergson 1904–05/2017:29–30), it is still so that freedom and its accompanying moral and ethical issues has been and continues to be a problem for philosophy and science alike.

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As stated already in the introduction to this book pedagogical problems scent of freedom. It is one if not the most important problem in historic and contemporary education and pedagogy. Bergson’s appeal to Life in freedom and moral matters is echoed in pedagogy’s conception of freedom; the moral and ethical issues it evokes and the intimate connection to Life in and beyond formal education it entails. In resonance with the explosive character of the development of the philosophical problem of freedom, in education and pedagogy freedom and Life “irrupt” whenever a too rigid order and the “the training of the young like animals” (Jaeger 1939/1945:xxiii) is allowed to govern educational experiences and events: Inevitably, towards the end of a historical period, when thought and custom have petrified into rigidity (…) life stirs again beneath the hard crust. ( Jaeger 1939/1945:xviii) Both in pedagogy and in Bergson’s philosophy, then, there is recognition of the fact that even if freedom comes with problems – and it really does – it is also the case that problems come with freedom. On that note, Bergson himself will be allowed to end the first part of this book, just as he ends his course on the evolution of the problem of freedom on the 19 May 1905, thereby opening up for a “more complex and comprehensive science” – pedagogy – to be treated in the next part of this book: The object of this course was simply to demonstrate, first of all, how the problem of freedom is the problem of the relation between knowledge and action, that the difficulties of this problem is to be found in a conflict that has always existed, and that still exists, between reflective systematic thought and intuition, that in this conflict it is intuition that necessarily is submitted, that it is always discursive thought that sweeps it away, until the day where by some sort of inevitable eruption, intuition revokes and reclaims its rights, and finally – I have only been able to draw a sketch of this point during our last lesson – that this conflict is perhaps not destined to last forever, that discursive thought and intuition that so far have been like two enemy-sisters could, maybe, be reconciled in a science that is less simple than the one that has traversed philosophy all the way up to Kant, a science much more complex, much more comprehensive, that would take stock of all of experience, that would not say a priori: We know up until now facts reduced to this or that form, and then this form would be the definitive form that fits with all possible knowledge. No, science could become completely and radically empirical and take stock of all experience, internal as external, including that which is an intuition and that gives, we believe, a thing in itself, as much as that which is knowledge coming from the outside and through relations. So, with such a comprehensive conception of science, intuition and discursive thought may be reconciled.35 (Bergson 1904-5/2017:345, my translation)

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Notes 1 Method, however, here has got a somewhat ambiguous character. On the one hand Bergson continuously criticizes methods both in science and in philosophy. On the other hand, he speaks of his own “method” in such a way that it has been possible for Deleuze (2006), as reluctant as Bergson to simplified generalization and formalisation, to talk about intuition as a method. Even though one may want to proceed carefully with Deleuze’s interpretation of Bergson’s “method” (Sinclair 2020), Bergson clearly deals with a philosophy that aims at precision through method. This ambition of preciseness is something that seems to be of utmost importance in the contemporary educational situation, due to the therewithin contested, debated and neglected real. Even though the claims in this book are not to reach an absolute real of educational experiences and events, it does aspire to develop both a methodology (the way we think of method) and a method (“rules” for how to proceed), capable of being precise when attempting to bring back some aspects of real educational experiences and events. Deleuze’s systematic interpretation of Bergson’s method of intuition therefore here becomes important and useful (see also Chapter 1, note 1 on the use of Deleuze’s interpretation in this book). 2 L’intuition n’est pas un raccourci ou un processus divinatoire qui permettrai d’écarter le travail de l’entendement, en dépit d’un tenace malentendu, mais elle est plutôt l’effort central d’un travail plus articulé, qui commence d’abord par une phase négative, consistant à écarter les faux problèmes de la philosophie. 3 The introduction and preceding work of writing Chapter 1 in this book for instance, clearly came about not only through analysis, but also through an intuition of what was at stake in the contemporary educational situation, and how this in different ways could be related to Bergson’s work. 4 L’intuition centrale du bergsonisme est en somme élevée au rang de principe générateur à la fois de sa doctrine et de sa méthode. 5 la capacité de la pensée humaine, surtout spatiale, à atteindre le réel, surtout temporal. 6 British biologist Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) and French biologist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829). 7 This is one sense in which Bergson’s oeuvre differs from the “vitalist” schools of his time (Grosz 2004:201). 8 C’est cette dualité qui permet et qui impose non seulement un dépassement de l’intelligence, pour accéder de l’évolution à la création, mais une genèse, pour redescendre de la création à l’évolution et à l’intelligence même. 9 réalité ultime 10 la critique de l’espace, étendue à la perception de la matière, conduit à une métaphysique de la durée, elle-même étendue à la réalité de la matière 11 This sometimes still seems to be the case with contemporary and unqualified translations of neuroscientific findings into educational practice and theory. It seems important here to acknowledge that translations that are based on a simplified causal logic and one-to-one correspondence between brain and mind are “guided not by empirical findings, but, at bottom, by the a priori philosophical thesis of psycho-physical parallelism, since epiphenomenalism presupposes it” (Sinclair 2020:100, original emphasis). 12 This account of Bergson’s oeuvre may be of particular interest for researchers engaged in post-humanist efforts within different scientific disciplines, including education and pedagogy. As stated by Elisabeth Grosz: “This notion of life, mind, perception as both the organization of images around a central nucleus and as the interposition of a temporal delay between stimulus and response distinguishes Bergson’s position from any form of humanism and from charges of anthropomorphic projection. Mind or life is not a special substance, different in nature to matter. Rather, mind or life partakes of and lives in and as matter (…) not through complete immersion in matter but through the creation of a distance that enables matter to be obscured, to be cast in a new light, or rather, to have many of its features cast into shadow” (Grosz 2004:167).

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13 Bergson states that these two forms of memory are constantly mixed up and because they (in slightly different ways) tend towards bodily movements and actions both philosophers and psychologists come to the conclusion that memories are stored in the brain: “So they must assume that the cerebral mechanism, whether of the brain or of the medulla oblongata or of the cord, which serves as the basis of the motor habit, is at the same time the substratum of the conscious image. Hence the strange hypothesis of recollections stored in the brain, which are supposed to become conscious as though by a miracle and bring us back to the past by a process that is left unexplained” (Bergson 1896/1991:89). 14 une grande traité de corps 15 le temps fondamental 16 From this it is also clear that the approach does not belong to an anthropocentric idea – if matter and mind may meet, it is rather due to a displacement beyond human and subjective experience. This is yet another point displaying why Bergson could be of utmost importance to anyone interested in post-humanist studies (see further, Ansell Pearson 2018:5–8). 17 La distinction psychologique des deux premières mémoires ne se conçoit donc qu’avec la priorité métaphysique de la troisième, coextensive à la durée et à la conscience elles-mêmes, et dont l’intensité varie avec elles. 18 La matière dans laquelle nous introduit notre corps serait donc non seulement extension, mais aussi tension temporelle, même minimale et relâchée (…) La matière ne serait pas une chose, mais un acte et même un acte double, extension et tension, elle est en ce sens analogue à notre esprit ou plus précisément à notre mémoire et à notre vie, s’en distinguant cependant radicalement par dégrée. 19 Plutôt donc qu’une série de représentations d’’objets’ dans l’esprit d’un ‘sujet’, la perception est donc finalement une rencontre entre deux actes ou deux activités, une tension temporelle et interne à la matière, d’un côté, et de l’autre côté une extension matérielle et externe à notre esprit, une rencontre donc, pourrait-on dire, entre deux ‘vies’ si on entend par ‘vie’ non pas la contrainte pratique qui conduit au contraire aux fausses images de nous-mêmes et des choses, mais l’acte temporel immanent qui fait l’unité de toute réalité individuelle! 20 Marc Sinclair here pays attention to how “early” and “before his time” Bergson was in such conception of matter in relation to the progress science has made in this respect: “Remarkably, Bergson advanced these ideas decades before wave mechanics, for example, and the discovery of the materialisation and dematerialisation of ‘particles’ in quantum physics” (Sinclair 2020:119). Sinclair, however, also states that “This reconciliation of science and metaphysics implies a form of panpsychism that may not be music to the scientist’s ears: if things have their own tension of duration, and the different tensions of duration are a function of the different planes of consciousness, then things have their own form, however minimal it may be, of consciousness (…) even if it is not a reflective, self-aware consciousness. It is for this reason that Bergson’s claim that perception arises as a subtraction from a pre-given world does not amount to a dogmatic materialist realism. If it is a realism, his position is a panpsychic, spiritualist realism: the world that pre-exists my perception of it is a tensed, minimally conscious world of duration.” (Sinclair 2020:126). 21 Several of Bergson’s interpreters point towards the somewhat hesitating (!) conclusions in Matter and Memory (1896/1991). Elizabeth Grosz states that it is only in Bergson’s later works that a fuller account of a non-binarized relation between matter and mind is given (Grosz 2004:198) and Marc Sinclair points out that the final conclusions in this book still tend towards a somewhat mechanistic explanation of matter (Sinclair 2020:130–131). Frédéric Worms, in turn, argues that space is somewhat “left aside” and not fully accounted for as part of the “double condition” of our lives which also becomes the very task, Worms argues, in Bergson’s next book The Creative Evolution (1907/2007) (Worms 2013a:17). I also have great difficulties figuring out what Bergson

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really does and is after in this last part of the book, and I have therefore chosen in this final part of the account of Matter and Memory (1896/1991) to rely on trustworthy interpretations of the work, rather than attempting my own interpretation of it. I have still kept, though, the idea of space as being “deposited” as more or less an “effect” of the movements that matter and mind perform. This, because I find it interesting in relation to education and pedagogy, that, especially with the youngest children, often concern both critique and active transformation of educational environments and spaces. 22 Elizabeth de Freitas and Francesca Ferrara (2015), for instance, points toward recent neuroscientific research about brain plasticity and a-modal perception as recent findings that also lie close to Bergson’s reasoning. 23 L’éducation devrait en somme être repensée pour augmenter la tension entre la durée de la conscience et des choses, que Bergson considère comme vitale. 24 Jankélévitch 1959/2015:25 25 La liberté est donc la propriété d’un acte dont la cause, irréductible à toute détermination extérieure ou à tout motif isolée, est la totalité d’une réalité singulière qui dure. La liberté n’existe donc que dans des actes singuliers, rapportés à un sujet lui-même singulier, et non pas à un pouvoir général de se determiner de manière autonome; l’irréductibilité de ces actes à toute explication déterminante vient de la durée singulière de ce sujet même (…)L’acte libre est donc l’acte produit par la durée d’un moi, celui où se retrouve rétrospectivement le contenu de ce moi et de lui seul. 26 Bergson’s approach to freedom and free will, is, according to Frédéric Worms, neither irrationalism nor naturalism or psychologism. It is not irrationalism because the individual’s reason is still part of the free act. It is not naturalism because the self is here not fully determined by natural laws. And finally, it is not psychologism because freedom is by various degrees extended also to the material world and matter (Worms 2013b:62). Neither, as earlier stated (p. 73), is it a “presentism” as Marc Sinclair states that there “is no present moment wholly distinct from the past to which we can grant the title of ‘existence’” (Sinclair 2020:52). Marc Sinclair also notes that even though Bergson wrote at a time well before, for instance, quantum theory and the uncertainty principle, and despite that ”an all-embracing deterministic physical science is no longer a credible promise or a real threat” (Sinclair 2020:65), his argument on freedom and free will “have lost nothing of their pertinence and importance, for the perspectives he criticizes still determine much of the contemporary work in the metaphysics of free will” (ibid). Sinclair also adds that “It is a shame that anti-necessitarian conceptions of causation in contemporary metaphysics have not paid more attention to Bergson and the tradition of contingency theorists that he develops” (Sinclair 2020:72). 27 This, Frédéric Worms notes, is the case with all of Bergson’s major works: the disposition of the works do not follow the order of discovery in a chronological fashion, but they are rather following - even in their “architecture”- the durational logic of time and the double movement of intuition and intellect (Worms 2013a:19–20). 28 This is expressed in how we normally measure time as “clock-time”. Marc Sinclair (2020) gives a clear illustration of how this inevitably concerns spatialization and quantification of time: “On the face of a functioning clock, one revolution of the minute-hand is simultaneous with that portion of the daily movement of the earth. Therefore, when we measure the time elapsed in, say, someone running 1500 metres with and by the means of the clock, we compare two simultaneous movements: we compare the locomotion of the runner to that of the earth around the sun (…) In order to measure the period of the time elapsed, we mark the beginning and end of each of the movements, but we thereby focus on the beginning and the end of the period of time elapsed rather than the elapsed time” (Sinclair 2020:37). 29 It may well be considered a mistake as Bergson concludes that it is quality that underlies and makes quantification possible at all: “Hence it is through the quality of quantity that we form the idea of quantity without quality” (Bergson/1889/2013:123).

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That quality is the foundation of quantity Bergson very concretely exemplifies with how tradesmen round off the price to the nearest number below – this is an emotional appeal to the qualitative experience of a “lower price”. 30 Deleuze (2004a), for instance, claims that “a lyric theme runs through Bergson’s work: a veritable hymn in praise of the new, the unforeseeable, of invention, of liberty” (Deleuze 2004:30–31, emphasis added). 31 La liberté est un certain caractère inhérent à notre action, telle qu’elle nous apparâit immédiatement, telle qu’elle nous est donnée à notre conscience immédiate. Nous voulons quelque chose et, intérieur à cette volonté, immanent à cette volonté pour ainsi dire, il y a un sentiment de la liberté. Donc la liberté est un certain sentiment réel ou apparent donné par la conscience immédiate quand la volonté agit. D’autre part, s’il y a un problème de la liberté – et il y a un problème de la liberté – c’est évidemment que la réflexion intervient car ce problème ne se pose qu’à la pensée réfléchie. Donc le problème de la liberté est évidemment un problème qui naît, qui surgit de la mise en présence de la conscience immédiate et de la pensée réfléchie. C’est ainsi que nous le définirons : c’est le problème que notre action pose à notre spéculation. Mais pourquoi l’action pose-t-elle ce problème à la spéculation? C’est probablement que elles ne sont pas d’accord. 32 Nous dirons que la liberté est donnée dans une intuition, qui est co-extensive à l’action ; c’est l’action se saisissant elle-même dans son accomplissement. On arrivera jamais à cette intuition en partant de la réflexion, et on peut dire de la liberté, en reprenant un mot célèbre, que celui qui la cherche ne la trouvera jamais, il faut partir d’elle ; du reste on peut dire dans un autre sens qu’on ne la chercherait pas, si on ne l’avait déjà trouvée ; il faut s’installer en elle, il faut partir de l’action s’accomplissant. 33 Marc Sinclair (2020) notes that in Time and Free Will – An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (1889/2013), Bergson has not yet developed intuition into a method. 34 Apart from referring to Bergson’s major works, Melo focus on addresses given by Bergson at Sorbonne 1896, at conferences at the University of Edinburgh 1914, at Columbia University 1913 and at a conference in Madrid 1916. 35 L’objet de ce cours était simplement de montrer d’abord que le problème de la liberté c’est le problème du rapport de la connaissance à l’action, que les difficultés du problème tiennent au conflit qui a toujours existé, qui a existé jusqu’ici entre la pensée réfléchie, systématique et l’intuition, que dans ce conflit c’est l’intuition qui nécessairement a le dessous, que c’est toujours la pensée discursive qui l’emporte jusqu’au jour où par une espèce d’éruption inévitable l’intuition revendique et reprend ses droits, puis enfin – je n’ai pu qu’esquisser ce point dans la dernière leçon -, que ce conflit n’est peut-être pas destiné à durer toujours, que la pensée discursive et l’intuition qui ont été jusqu’ici deux sœurs ennemies pourront peut-être se réconcilier dans une science moins simple que celle qui traverse la philosophie jusqu’au Kant, une science beaucoup plus complexe, plus compréhensive, qui tiendrait compte de toute l’expérience, qui ne dirait pas a priori : Nous connaissons jusqu’à présent des faits réductible à telle ou telle forme, et alors cette forme est la forme définitive qui conviendra a toute connaissance possible. Non, la science pourrait devenir complètement, radicalement empirique et tenir compte de toute l’expérience aussi bien interne qu’externe, aussi bien celle qui est une intuition et qui donne alors, croyons-nous, une chose en soi, que celle qui est une connaissance du dehors, par relation. Ainsi dans une conception aussi compréhensive de la science, intuition et pensée discursive pourraient se réconcilier.

References Ansell Pearson, K. (2018) Bergson: Thinking beyond the human condition. London: Bloomsbury. Bergson, H. (1889/2013) Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness. Oxfordshire and New York: Routledge.

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Bergson, H. (1896/1991) Matter and memory. New York: Zone Books. Bergson, H. (1907/2007) Creative evolution. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bergson, H. (1932/1977) The two sources of morality and religion. Notre Dame Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. Bergson, H. (1934/2007) The creative mind: An introduction to metaphysics. New York: Dover publications. Bergson, H. (1904–1905/2017) L’Évolution du problème de la liberté. cours au collège de France 1904–1905. Paris: PUF. Davies, B. (2014) Listening to children: Being and becoming. London: Routledge. Debaise, D. and Stengers, I. (2016) L’insistance des possibles. Pour un pragmatisme spéculatif. Multitudes, 65 (4). https://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2016-4page-82.htm de Freitas, E. and Ferrara, F. (2015) Movement, memory and mathematics: Henri Bergson and the ontology of learning, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 34 (6), 565–585. DOI: 10.1007/s11217-014-9455-y Deleuze, G. (2004a) Bergson, 1859-1941, in D. Lapoujade Desert islands and other texts. Los Angeles & New York: Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2006) Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books. Francois, A. (2020) Bergson’s theory of truth, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott, Interpreting Bergson: Critical essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Greene, M. (2018/1988) The dialectic of freedom. New York: Teacher College Press. Grosz, E. (2004) The nick of time: Politics, evolution and the untimely. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Grosz, E. (2005) Bergson, Deleuze and the becoming of unbecoming, Parallax, 11 (2) 4–13. DOI: 10.1080/13534640500058434 Grosz, E. (2010) Feminism, materialism and freedom, in D. Cole and S. Frost, New materialisms: Ontology, agency & politics. Durham: Duke University Press. Jaeger, W. (1939/1945, 2nd) Paideia – The ideals of Greek culture. Volume I Archaic Greece the mind of Athens. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Jankélévitch, V. (1959/2015) Henri Bergson, in A. Lefebvre and N. F. Schott Henri Bergson by Vladimir Jankélévitch. Durham & London: Duke University Press. Lombard, J. (1997) Bergson: Création et éducation. Paris: Éditions l’Harmattan. Melo, D. (2019) Notes towards a pedagogy of movement: On will and education in Henri Bergson, Educacao et Realidade, 44 (1), 1–14. DOI: 10.1590/2175-623677417 Mossé-Bastide, R.-M. (1955) Bergson éducateur. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France. Roberts, P. and Saeverot, H. (2018) Education and the limits of reason – Reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov. London and New York: Routledge. Rose, N. and Abi-Rached, J. (2013) Neuro: The new brains sciences and the management of the mind. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Roy, K. (2019) Teachers and teaching: Time and the creative tension. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sinclair, M. (2020) Bergson. London and New York: Routledge. Sommer, M. G. (2020) Making spirit matter: Neurology, psychology and selfhood in modern France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Worms, F. (2005). Time thinking: Bergson’s double philosophy of mind, MLN, 120 (5), 1226–1234. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3840708 Worms, F. (2013a) Bergson ou les deux sens de la vie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Worms, F. (2013b) Le vocabulaire de Bergson. Paris: Ellipses Édition.

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Worms, F. (2015) ‘La vie est-elle la double source de la morale? La philosophie de Bergson entre immanence et transcendance’, in A. Bouaniche, F. Keck and F. Worms, Les Deux Sources de la morale et de la religion: Bergson, Collection « Philo-œuvre » (ed.) J. P. Zarader. Paris: Édition Ellipses. Worms, F. (2019a) Henri Bergson expliqué par Frédéric Worms. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=lF9dA8_WXWo&list=OLAK5uy_kEbn4W9UsNMdejYN7aMz75bkNWryAUXo [2022-04-30] Worms, F. (2020) Le temps de la pensée et dans la vie: de La Pensée et le mouvant à aujourd’hui, in C. Zanfi, Bergson: La pensée et le mouvant: Introduction (première et deuxième parties). Paris: Éditions Desclée de Brouwer. Zanfi, C. (2020) Bergson La pensée et le mouvant: Introduction (première et deuxième parties). Paris: Éditions Desclée de Brouwer.

Part II

THE GREAT OBLIVION

3 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY REVISITED, REVIVIFIED AND REUNITED

Science and Philosophy in the Scientific Study of Education As seen in the conclusions of the preceding part of this book, that freedom comes with problems and problems come with freedom is something that needs to be met by science and philosophy alike. The great complexity of the issue really does seem to demand both efforts. But more precisely how should these efforts and the relation between them be understood, particularly in the scientific study of education? As said, Bergson directed critique towards both science and philosophy; philosophy was accused of being too wide for reality and science as being too narrow. However, as with all dualisms in Bergson’s work also the one pertaining to the different status and modus of science and philosophy does not “have the last word” (Deleuze 2006:22). Even though Bergson recognized that the different tasks of science and philosophy and metaphysics originally lay in being preoccupied with matter and mind respectively – and with different methods for obtaining knowledge of these – the introduction of intuition appeals to a different status and modus of both being and knowledge and may provoke both science and metaphysics to revisit and revivify their tasks (Bergson 1934/2007:31). As stated by Keith Ansell Pearson: “In this recovery of intuition Bergson aims to save science from the charge of producing a relativity of knowledge (it is rather to be regarded as ‘approximative’) and metaphysics from the charge of indulging in empty and idle speculation” (Ansell Pearson 2007:xix). Perhaps therein also lies the key to a more radically empirical science, as Bergson puts it in the quote that ended the first part of this book; the contact between science and metaphysics may become “fecundation” (Bergson 1934/2007:31) and this may make them both more precise in relation to reality itself (Bergson 1934/2007:30), which, however, demands a non-hierarchical relation between them. DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-6

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It is again a question of differentiating and joining our “two lives” and also our “double” knowledge – scientific and philosophical – of these. As seen in the account of Creative Evolution (Bergson 1907/2007), philosophy and metaphysics may not be destined to proceed only through empty speculation, but can be part of a “true empiricism”; philosophical speculation may be “grounded in facts that are empirically intelligible and testable” (Ansell Pearson 2007:ix–x) and could thereby benefit from the sciences in this respect. Just as science would have everything to gain from philosophy and metaphysics, who could give to it the conceptions and directions needed, especially when it proceeds from the study of inert matter to the study of Life (Bergson 1907/2007:128). If science, philosophy and metaphysics are made to “commune in experience” (Bergson 1934/2007:31) they may give a much fuller and precise account of the double condition of our knowledge and our reality: Thus combined, all our knowledge, both scientific and metaphysical, is heightened. In the absolute we live and move and have our being. The knowledge we possess of it is incomplete, no doubt, but not external or relative. It is reality itself, in the profoundest meaning of the word, that we reach by the combined and progressive development of science and of philosophy. (Bergson 1907/2007:128) The reunited effort of science and philosophy could, then, at least address, that “absolute” where “we live and move and have our being”. Even though the claims in this present book are far from any pretensions of reaching “absolute” knowledge of educational experiences and events, it still seems of interest to evoke the preciseness that a reunited scientific and philosophical effort may bring to the contemporary educational situation where real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events are deeply doubted and debated. But what would all this imply in the particular case of pedagogy? As stated in the introduction, pedagogy must be understood as springing from philosophy, but also as an autonomous, independent and “grown up” scientific discipline with three specific (and interrelated) domains: practice, science and knowledge tradition. Nevertheless, it was also said that this is one tradition and that there are others. What does, then, the scientific study of education look like today?

Knowledge traditions in the Scientific Study of Education In a recent comparative overview, Furlong and Whitty (2017) analyze and describe current and different knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education in seven countries (England, France, Germany, Latvia, Australia, China and USA). The term “knowledge tradition” is here defined by turning to British Sociologist of Education Basil Bernstein’s (1924–2000) work. A distinction made concerns whether a knowledge tradition is “horizontal and profane” or “vertical and sacred”1 where the former concerns context-based, local, “everyday” and “common sense” knowledge, “circulated and exchanged through fluid

Science and Philosophy Revisited, Revivified and Reunited 127 TABLE 3.1  Knowledge traditions in the study of education.

Cluster 1: Academic knowledge traditions ‘Singulars’ within the field of education 1. Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation 2. German Educational Theory

Education as a ‘region’ 3. “Applied” Educational Research and Scholarship 4. The “New” Science of Education

Cluster 2: Practical knowledge traditions 5. 6. 7. 8.

Education as a “generic” – competences and standards The “normal” college tradition of teacher education Liberal education + craft knowledge Networked professional knowledge

Cluster 3: Integrated knowledge traditions 9. 10. 11. 12.

Pedagògija (Latvia) Practitioner enquiry/action research Research informed clinical practice Learning sciences

Source: Furlong and Whitty (2017).

and unsystematic social processes”, and the latter “specialised symbolic structures” and “context-independent” knowledge, communicated and supported by academic and social structures (Furlong & Whitty 2017:18). Furlong and Whitty goes further in the Bernsteinian conceptualization and add Bernstein’s “typology of singulars, regions and generics” (ibid:20) to account for different knowledge traditions (these notions are described below). Throughout their analysis, they also focus if and how the different knowledge traditions relate practice and ­theory with each other in the scientific study of education. Their analysis and classification are illustrated and summarized in Table 3.1. Furlong and Whitty identify three different clusters of knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education: (1) academic knowledge traditions, (2) practical knowledge traditions and (3) integrated knowledge traditions (Table 3.1). 1. Cluster One: Academic knowledge traditions Within cluster one Furlong and Whitty identify two “singular” knowledge traditions. Bernstein’s conception of a “singular” is that it consists of “a body of specialised knowledge that has a discrete discourse within its own intellectual field of texts, practices, rules of entry etc., and is protected by strong boundaries and hierarchies” (ibid:20–21). Furlong and Whitty give mathematics as one example of such “singular” tradition, and in the scientific study of education, they give two different (and contrasting) examples: Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation and German Educational Theory.

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Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation is the first example of a “singular” character, particularly strong in the UK and USA, but also in Australia as well as in France and China. This knowledge tradition in education consists of a multidisciplinary approach to the scientific study of education, where the history, philosophy, sociology and psychology of education are independently studied. This is what in the introduction to this book was called the Anglo-American tradition, but that, as Furlong and Whitty show, is common also in different parts of Europe, Asia and Oceania. Here, the scientific study of education is conceived from the point of view that “there is no distinctively ‘educational’ way of thinking” (Tibble as cited in Furlong & Whitty 2017:23). The different disciplines, therefore, study education from the epistemological assumptions of their own discipline, and there is often a strong structure of social and intellectual networks such as the American Psychological Association and the British Association of Applied Linguistics that support the conservation of scientific knowledge within each discipline. The strength of this tradition is intellectual rigour, where each discipline builds upon its own epistemological and methodological tradition. The weaknesses are lack of insight into how these perspectives may be related to each other in the study of education and a “problematic” and distanced relation to educational practice (ibid). German Educational Theory is the second and contrasting example of a “singular” character within the first cluster. As the name indicates, it is predominant in Germany and it is supported by the German Educational Research Association, but it is also common in the Nordic countries and has found its way into the USA (see, for instance, Friesen 2017, Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018). This knowledge tradition has its roots in philosophical hermeneutical and phenomenological schools, with a clearly defined set of educational concepts such as Erziehung, Bildung and Didaktik, where the first concept concerns a broad concept of education inside and outside formal educational institutions, while the second and third concept pertains to students’ self-formation and the study of different subject matters (Furlong & Whitty 2017:24–25). This is what in the introduction to this book was called the Continental tradition, and in contrast to the Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation, the departure is not from the respective disciplines of history, philosophy, sociology or psychology. Rather, education is here seen as an independent scientific discipline that does come with specific educational thinking gathered under the term Pädagogik (ibid). There is an explicit normative stance, both in relation to society’s task to foster a “moral community” and in relation to the individual learner, and there are also explicit ambitions to formulate universal educational aims (ibid). This tradition is academic in its nature, and as Furlong and Whitty state it is often quite different and far from the everyday knowledge of pedagogical practices (ibid). In the first cluster Furlong and Whitty also identify two academic knowledge traditions of a “region-type”. The conception of “regions” implies that:

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“First, they are made up of a number of singulars that are re-­contextualised into larger units; second, they ‘face both ways’, operating both in the intellectual field of disciplines and in a field of practice”. Examples of such “regional” disciplines are medicine, engineering and architecture (ibid:25), and in the scientific study of education ‘Applied’ Educational Research and Scholarship and The ‘New Science’ of Education. ‘Applied’ Educational Research and Scholarship is a knowledge tradition that concerns research that adress particular topics, for instance, the early years or assessment and special education (ibid:26). This pertains to what in the introduction to this book was described as the placement of the scientific study of ECEC as a “sub-discipline”. And there are many subgroups within this knowledge tradition and scientific study of education, expressed not the least in the different special interest groups within BERA (about 30 SIGs) and AERA (several hundred SIGs) (ibid). Furlong and Whitty describe the strength of such research and scholarship as consisting of a close relationship between theory and practice as well as the research being applied in educational practice (ibid:27). However, the weaknesses with this knowledge tradition is that it does not have any specific disciplinary framing and thereby no common epistemological and methodological framework, which may hinder the accumulation of knowledge on the topic (ibid). The second “region-type” in cluster one is The ‘New Science’ of Education. This is a recent tradition in the scientific study of education that attempts to answer to the question of “what works” in education , most often through randomized control trials (RCT) and systematic reviews (ibid:28). There is an explicit aim to model the scientific study of education on the methods of the natural sciences. This is motivated by decreasing knowledge results and the call for remedies to this exposed by, for instance, OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This tradition is widely and internationally supported by governments and policymakers, expressed, for instance, in the USA through the initiative No Child Left Behind, and in England through obliging all researchers that apply for funding within the Education Endowment Foundation to consider RCT methodology in their research (ibid:29). This concerns what in the first part of this book was described as the educational politics and situation of our time, including the example given of the OECD-initiated International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing Study (IELS). Furlong and Whitty see the strength of this kind of scientific study of education as pertaining to “methodological rigour”. Its weaknesses, however, is “reductive conceptualisation of complex educational processes” (ibid:29) and the fact that even though “its aspiration is to guide practice, this tradition’s way of doing that can sometimes seem to provide expert technical knowledge, which reduces the scope for professional judgement and thereby turns teachers into technical functionaries” (ibid).

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2. Cluster Two: Practical knowledge traditions In the second cluster called Practical Knowledge Traditions we find the more “horizontal” and “profane” knowledge traditions: Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards, The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education, Liberal Education & Crafts Knowledge, and Networked Professional Knowledge. In relation to the first tradition in this cluster, Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards, Furlong and Whitty state: “Generics are usually led by external agents such as governments or employers who may have little interest in disciplinary knowledge production” (ibid:30). Furlong and Whitty here mention the many “standards” frameworks that have developed in education, not the least in teacher education, all over the world. Their examples of bodies from which such “standards” originate are the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards in the USA and the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. This knowledge tradition concerns what in the first part of this book was described as a “standards and accountability movement”, heavily influencing the whole corpus of educational practice and research, and as Furlong and Whitty state: “As a consequence, nationally defined standards now frame or ‘discipline’ both the knowledge and practical experiences to which prospective teachers are exposed; the standards become the curriculum, which is explicitly intended to integrate (highly selective) elements of theoretical knowledge and practical skill” (ibid:31). The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education is the second example of a “horizontal” and “profane” practical knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education. This is an old tradition, dating back 300 years to the establishment of the first école normale by Jean Baptiste de la Salle in Reims, France, and it grows from the process of “mass-schooling” and the need to create largescale education of teachers. Consequently, specific schools for such training were created in France, China and the USA (ibid). As Furlong and Whitty notes, many of these were of a more “liberal” education character (rather than being about instrumental “training”) and in coherence with the context and etymology of the French term normale, meaning “setting a moral standard or pattern”, they carried a strong moral focus (on religious values in the 19th century and on a “child-centred approach” in the mid20th century) and a close relation to practice (ibid:32-33). This is of importance still today, as the differences between this tradition and the university tradition became particularly visible when many of these “normal” teacher colleges were incorporated into university structures. It is also visible today, as the research performed by former teacher college institutions within university settings tends to be more closely related to local actors in schools and communities, while so-called “elite universities” often do not engage in teacher education at all (ibid:33). The third example of a “horizontal” and “profane” practical knowledge tradition is Liberal Education + Craft Knowledge. As Furlong and Whitty

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acknowledge, these are, in fact, two distinct traditions, but they often are joined both in policy initiatives and in public discourse in the countries that the study covers (ibid:34–35). Within the former tradition, there is the idea that personal liberal education together with experience in practice is all that is needed. Any specific university training in education is here deemed unnecessary; it suffices to educate the mind and its analytic capacities in a broad sense. Within the latter tradition the main issue at stake is that teaching is a craft that can be learnt through the appeal to other forms of knowledge such as embodied, contextual, implicit or tacit knowledge (ibid). The combination of these two traditions has now come to dominate powerful policy discourses and programs in many countries such as Teach for America, Teach for Australia, Teach for China, Teach first Deutschland and Teach first in England and Wales. As recalled by Furlong and Whitty, the main aim is “recruiting the most academically successful young graduates – those with evidence of having had a strong personal liberal education – and placing them after very limited initial preparation in schools facing the greatest educational need, where they are expected, through their direct teaching experience, to develop the ‘skills, mindset and knowledge needed to maximise impact on student achievement’ (teachforall.org)” (ibid). Networked professional knowledge is the last example of a “horizontal” and “profane” knowledge tradition in the study of education. This tradition originates according to Furlong and Whitty from the idea of “a new production of knowledge” within and outside university settings (ibid:36). Furthermore, in this tradition it has been important to acknowledge local practices’ own creation of professional knowledge (ibid:37). This has been the forerunner to the many different and innovative professional national and international networks in education that have been created, and in collaboration with university partners the idea has here been that the knowledge produced will be of more relevance for educational practices (ibid:37–38). 3. Cluster Three: Integrated knowledge traditions In cluster three, Furlong and Whitty identify four different knowledge traditions; Pedagògija (Latvia), Practitioner enquiry/action research, Research informed clinical practice and Learning Sciences. In contrast to the first two clusters, within these traditions, the practice and theory of education are more integrated and related. The first example is that of Pedagògija in Latvia which has a long and rich tradition of considering pedagogy as an independent scientific discipline. The tradition is partly inspired by German Educational Theory, but also by American progressivism, particularly John Dewey (1859–1952), as well as (in the post-war period of Soviet occupation) the socio-cultural perspectives of Lev Vygotskij (1896–1934) (ibid:39). Consequently, Pedagògija relies upon a strong philosophical and normative commitment as well as on child-centred

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ideas and conceptions of learning as a social process, focusing both formal and informal settings and questions in education (ibid). Equal attention is directed towards the practical and theoretical sources of education, expressed for instance in the term “philosophy-in-use” (ibid). In Latvia, this has for a long time been the most predominant knowledge tradition and form of scientific study in education, expressed also in the institutionalization of academic degrees in pedagogy, from undergraduate to doctoral studies. However, due to a “political re-direction” in the 1990s the tradition of Educational Sciences/Sciences de l’Éducation has developed as an officially recognized alternative (ibid:39–40). The second example of an integrated knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education is Practitioner enquiry/action research. As with the tradition of Pedagògija, there is a close relation between research and practice, even to the point of challenging the distinction between the researcher and the researched (ibid:40). This is a tradition with a history dating back to, at least, the mid 1950s, and it is still alive and expressed in modern times in the UK, Australia and the USA. This is research that focuses on situated, collaborative, participative, and self-evaluative aspects of knowledge and the scientific study in education (Furlong & Whitty 2017:40). It is a processual and normative tradition that has as its explicit aim to improve practice through collaboration between researchers and the persons involved as well as through modification of both the educational practice and the research design throughout the research process. Research Informed Clinical Practice is the third example of an integrated knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education and just as with the former tradition Practitioner enquiry/action research, it specifically addresses the relation of practice and theory in education and teacher education, not the least when it comes to novice teachers (ibid:41). It has been promoted as an alternative to “the fragmented, uninspiring or superficial nature of traditional approaches” (Furlong & Whitty 2017:41). Here, the term “research informed clinical practice” points towards the inspiration coming from the medical model and the attempt to integrate practical and research-based knowledge within such clinical practice (ibid). This has become a common tradition, expressed, for instance, through the Oxford Internship Scheme, the Scottish Teachers for a New Era programme and the Teachers for a New Era initiative in the USA (ibid:42). The fourth and last example in cluster three of an integrated knowledge tradition is the Learning Sciences, which is a recent knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education. It has developed from The ‘New Science’ of Education tradition and carries an explicit aim of using “rigorous” statistically based methods and RCT’s (ibid:43–44). It is common both in the studied countries, but also outside these (for instance, in Singapore) and it is supported by the International Society of Learning Sciences. This tradition

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concerns an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a variety of disciplines such as psychology, computer and information science, artificial intelligence and sociology in the scientific study of education with a “strong emphasis on the ways in which new technologies can support and enhance learning” (ibid:43). Learning is here broadly defined and considered taking place both within and outside formal educational settings, and there is particular focus paid towards the “design” and “improvement” of learning (ibid). Where, then, on the above drawn “map” of current knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education could pedagogy, as it is treated in this book, be placed? As stated in the introduction, pedagogy is here considered to be part of a Continental tradition that has strong roots in the academic and singular tradition of German Educational Theory. However, it was also stated that pedagogy pertains as much to practice as it does to theory, which, according to the description above, is not the case in that tradition. In that sense, pedagogy as it is treated in this book is closer to the traits of an integrated knowledge tradition such as Pedagògija in Latvia. Nevertheless, there are issues to be confronted here as such a tradition, not only in Latvia, seems to encounter fierce competition from the tradition Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation. As also stated in the introduction, many scientific disciplines could and should engage in the scientific study of education – there are certainly benefits with such efforts performed both within and outside formalized settings of Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation.2 There are, however, some issues pertaining to what kind of educational questions and realities such studies perform (Biesta 2011), especially, and as Furlong and Whitty (2017) state, if there is no consistent practical and theoretical common ground and focus upon which such collaboration between disciplines as well as between these and educational practice may take shape. As Furlong and Whitty (2017) conclude: It is the failure to confront these issues that has led growing numbers of governments around the world to question the utility of the discipline-led approach to Educational research and favour randomised controlled trials (RCT’s). (Furlong & Whitty 2017:23) There are also issues pertaining to the (often administratively and economically motivated)3 merging of The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education with university structures, as the former included accumulated intellectual and practical pedagogical knowledge of the teaching profession that may have got lost in such overarching re-organizations. Perhaps this is the reason for the strong development of both Practitioner enquiry/action research and Research Informed Clinical Practice. Both traditions claim the necessity of a close relationship

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between practice and theory in education and teacher education, and both seem to try to answer to a lack of relevant practical and theoretical knowledge for the teaching profession. However, due to the many and varied efforts within these traditions, they may also, unwittingly, further contribute to the lack of common epistemological assumptions and accumulation of knowledge that may occur also within the tradition of ‘Applied’ Educational Research and Scholarship. Further, it may have become clear in the first part of this book that there are some issues with the traditions and scientific studies of education performed within The ‘New Science’ of Education and the development of the Learning Sciences. There is here a lack of attention to the historical knowledge tradition of pedagogy in education (and not necessarily only German Educational Theory). As seen in the first part of this book, the natural sciences upon which these traditions draw tend to (through quantification, undifferentiation and spatialization) make them frame education as an abstract formalist problem with weak connection to real, becoming and free aspects of educational experiences and events. This is further enhanced in the traditions of Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards and Liberal Education + Craft Knowledge where the lack of attention to already accumulated practical and theoretical knowledge of education is striking – both these traditions perform a reduction and simplification of the contextuality, complexity and relationality of educational experiences and events. In addition, the strong politicization of educational practice and research, expressed in the intimate relation with global and local regulatory policy frameworks such as OECD and national government and policy incited “programs” and “standards”, particularly visible in Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards and The ‘New Science’ of Education, run the risk of framing education – despite appeals to “proven experience” and “scientific ground” – through ideology rather than through accumulated practical and theoretical knowledge. As Furlong and Whitty remind, Bernstein specifically warned against the loss of connection between educational practice and disciplinary knowledge that may occur within generic forms of the scientific study of education, as this “can make such knowledge open to manipulation by governments and employers and potentially destroy the identities (and autonomy) that professionals traditionally acquire through immersion in disciplinary knowledge” (Furlong & Whitty 2017:48). Finally, regardless of whether or not ECEC may, as Furlong and Whitty claim, pertain to the knowledge tradition of Applied Educational Research and Scholarship, it is important to acknowledge and address the lack of a common framework and thereby important accumulation of knowledge in such scientific study of education. It is also of essence to address the question of “rigorousness”. Rigorousness is, of course, of highest importance in any knowledge tradition and all scientific study. However, rigorousness can come about in different ways. And in

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a larger perspective, one may pose the following question: if all the above different knowledge traditions that engage in the scientific study of education act as separate agents (who on top of that do not always seem to get along), is it then possible to speak of “rigorousness” at all? The question of “rigorousness” and the placement of pedagogy on the current “map” of very diverse and sometimes competing knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education needs, then, to be more precisely defined.

The Knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the Scientific Study of Education: The Case of Sweden As a contribution to such precision the case and example of the development of the knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the scientific study of education in Sweden may here be added. Not only because this is the context I know best, and certainly not to further enhance European preference and presence, but rather because this may present a pertinent example of how historical and socio-political circumstances and contexts play a role in the formation of knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education. Moreover, by the end of this chapter, there are some small, but not insignificant, surprises to be discovered concerning certain striking resonances between the Swedish context of Pedagogik/Pedagogy and Bergson’s philosophy. It is, in fact, quite tricky to place the case of Sweden within Furlong and Whitty’s classificatory framework. The development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in Sweden strongly resembles the case of both German Educational Theory and Pedagògija in Latvia with roots in a Continental tradition of pedagogy as an independent academic and yet integrated knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education. However, in its initiation as a scientific discipline in Sweden, Pedagogik/Pedagogy was closely connected to psychology and throughout its development an Anglo-American tradition has been present in the scientific study of education. Further, there has been a strong ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education, but with political re-organizations this tradition became incorporated in university structures. Furthermore, with political changes in the government and organization of educational practice and research in the 1990s Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation, Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards and the ‘New Science’ of Education have largely expanded in the Swedish education and research system. In addition, there has been the development of efforts to join practice and theory in the scientific study of education that can be described as pertaining to both Practitioner enquiry/action research and Research Informed Clinical Practice. There has also been the creation of many sub-disciplines that may be described as pertaining to the tradition of Applied Educational Research and Scholarship. As far as I know, there has not been a strong development of either Liberal Education + Craft Knowledge or Learning Sciences in Sweden. There are also ample examples of researchers in Pedagogik/Pedagogy that have turned to the philosophy of education, but without inscribing such

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efforts in Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation and who moreover perform empirical research in close relation to practice in education and teacher education. Finally, especially in ECEC, many professional networks have developed that could be said to pertain to the tradition of Networked professional knowledge, but there are also efforts that do not completely fit into Furlong and Whitty’s classification of the early years within the tradition of Applied Educational Research and Scholarship, as Swedish ECEC also has been part of an academic knowledge tradition in Pedagogik/Pedagogy.4 Below, the development of the knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the scientific study of education in Sweden is further described.5 As stated in the introduction to this book, pedagogy, in what is conventionally known as the Western World, dates back to Greek Antiquity and was for a long time an essential part of philosophy. In Sweden this heritage dominated up until the end of the 18th century, where secularisation and preceding “scientific revolutions”6 (for instance, in the natural sciences: the discovery of De nova stella/The new star by Tycho Brahe (1546–1601)7; Johannes Kepler’s (1571–1630) organizational scheme of the planetary system; Galileo Galilei’s (1564–1642) telescope, and in philosophy: John Locke (1632–1704) and David Hume’s (1711–1776) philosophies of empirical experience and in the opposite direction René Descartes’ (1596–1650) rational idealism) created the ground for an initial differentiation and independence of scientific disciplines (Kristensson Uggla 2019; Kroksmark 1991). This included pedagogy that now became, at least less, connected to ­theology and philosophy and could begin its journey towards becoming an independent scientific discipline (Kroksmark 1991:93). At this early stage of formation, it may have been these preceding “scientific discoveries” of both earthbound/material and spiritual/psychological aspects of human beings and the world that created the main and “two-folded” focus in the scientific study of education. In fact, at this time two distinct directions in the scientific study of education were developed: an empirical-inductive and a philosophical-deductive; the first devoted to psychology inspired by the natural sciences (psychophysics), and the second to the philosophy (metaphysics) of Kant and the quest for “a unifying principle for pedagogy in ethics” (ibid:94). Both traditions harboured problems; the empirical direction harboured lack of (metaphysical) content and aim of education and the philosophical direction displayed lack of (physical and material) use in everyday practice (ibid). During the 19th century there was, then, a tension between two distinctively different approaches to pedagogy – one “scientific” and one “metaphysic” – and there was “a need to find a common ground” (ibid:94–95). Two men who took on this task (but that, unwittingly, may have ended up only prolonging the dualism between science and metaphysis) and that influenced the development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in Sweden were Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834). Herbart, considered the founder of empirical and natural science-inspired pedagogy,8 nevertheless aimed to create a pedagogical system capable of facing both

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(empirical psychologist) scientific and (transcendental ethical) metaphysical aspects of pedagogy (Linné 2018): Pedagogy as science relies on practical philosophy (here only concerning ethics) and psychology. Practical philosophy assigns the ends of education, psychology the way, the means and the obstacles. (Herbart as cited in Kroksmark 1991:96, my translation) Herbart, however, departed from Kant’s model of ethics, and put deduction of ideas before praxis. Schleiermacher, like Herbart, wanted to join ethics with practice, but his departure was the opposite – his efforts pointed towards ethics as already “inscribed”9 in practice. Schleiermacher, and his heir Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911), departing from hermeneutical interpretation, sought for specificity in pedagogical practice and resisted any kind of mathematical order and universal rule (ibid:98). Herbart and Schleiermacher, then, navigated between two (seemingly) oppositional positions – naturalist-empirical and idealist-rational – in the early “scientific” study of education (ibid:98–99). This “debate” influenced the Swedish context up until the turn of the century, and it was still very much alive by the time Pedagogik/Pedagogy in Sweden was to be acknowledged as an independent scientific discipline, expressed through the first installations of Professors in Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the first decade of the 20th century. After a rather long and complicated process, involving both academic, personal and political arguments, Bertil Hammer (1877–1929) was installed as Professor in Pedagogy at Uppsala University, on the 8 October 1910 and Axel Herrlin (1870–1937) was installed as Professor in Psychology and Pedagogy at Lund University in January 2012.10 As seen by the double title of Herrlin’s position, psychology was connected to pedagogy; many of the arguments for these professorships turned around the fact that earlier psychological findings now had reached sufficient maturity to be applied in education, particularly in teacher education and in relation to the need of a scientific ground for this expanding activity (Kroksmark 1991; Linné 2015; Säfström 1994). Despite this, and despite that, as we will see below, psychological perspectives came to dominate the scientific study of education during the first half of the 20th century, psychology is to be understood as a “support-­ science” to pedagogy; it is only 40 years later that psychology has its first professor installed and is considered an independent scientific discipline (Englund 2017; Lundgren 2015). In this first period of establishment, epistemological preference for psychological positivist and empirical study inspired by the natural sciences grows stronger. The legacy from philosophical schools of metaphysical Idealism inherited from Schleiermacher and Dilthey were now suppressed in favour of positivist and natural science-oriented scientific study of education conducted from a psychological perspective. This had far-going consequences in terms of a turn to psychological interpretations of means and methods in education within an atomistic perspective

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on both humans and the world, rather than philosophical and normative arguments of the aim and ends of education in a holistic perspective: At the time when education became established as a science in Sweden, there was strong pressure in favour of an empiricist, natural science-oriented positivism. This empiricism created specific conditions for the production of educational knowledge: questions of ends tended to be ruled out as a normative problematic and handled instead as objective, empirical issues; questions of means or methods of teaching were accentuated and, through psychology, gained scientific status within educational research; and atomistic assumptions took precedence as a basis for explanation. With the fall of idealism came an exclusion of the questions of ends from the status of a normative philosophical problematic within education, and of holistic and historically oriented explanatory models. (Säfström 1994:127) Hammer (1910), however, did not embrace this direction of thought, and presented a human science pedagogy similar to what in the introduction was called the Continental tradition and with inspiration from the theoretical resources in the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) frame and classify as German Educational Theory. This differed radically from the more natural science-­inspired pedagogy presented by Herrlin, who in its’ attempt to model pedagogy on psycho-physics and mathematics, would be closer to what in the introduction was called an Anglo-American tradition and to the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) name Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation. The empiricist-­psychological and the idealist-philosophical tension, which may also be described as taking place between a “technical” and a “value-based” rationality that was initiated already in the early formation of the discipline continues here to grow (Säfström 1994:128; Kroksmark 1991). During the first half of the 20th century, and with the legacy of Herbart gaining further ground, it is the empiricist-psychological and “technical” scientific study of education that dominates in Sweden. More specifically, this period is marked by inspiration from British differential psychology, with efforts to within large-scale statistical scientific studies differentiate and explain individual pupils’ variation in ability-profiles, social background, development and intelligence. Importantly, even though a lot of rightful critiques have been directed towards such efforts, the aim was here to take stock of “unexploited educational potential” and to adapt the educational system scientifically, politically, organisationally and practically in accordance with pupil’s varying prerequisites (Englund 2017; Kroksmark 1991; Lundgren 2015). By the mid-20th century, there is a shift in focus from the individual towards the social, and if psychology in the earlier period was considered “support-­ science” to pedagogy, it is now sociology that takes on this role. However, there

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is still no question of breaking with the legacy of empiricist scientific study inspired by the natural sciences – here we find an early period in the development of Pedagogy in Sweden marked by “the Anglo-American mode, with great reverence for experimental design in the empirical-positivist tradition” (Husén as cited in Englund 2017:29). And the priorities are here clear: “Experimental design was the ideal, surveys the second best, and observational descriptions was regarded as an unsatisfactory substitute” (ibid). The scientific study of education with sociology as “support-science” is here performed within large-scale statistical studies that now focus more on the organizational conditions and variations in individual pupils’ ability-profiles, social background, development and intelligence. There were also strong liaisons between these scientific studies and the political reformations of the school system at this time in Sweden, although, as seen below, in a different way than in the contemporary situation (Englund 2017; Linné 2018). During the 1960s some very influential research efforts brought about important changes in the scientific study of education in Sweden. Two classical studies performed during this time (Dahllöf 1967, 1971) challenged both the psychological and the sociological focus on individual pupil’s ability profiles, social backgrounds, development and intelligence through turning to other factors such as the relationship between pupil’s achievement, the level of goals and, not the least, the time pupils disposed of. These were shown to be factors as important as earlier identified factors that governed and conditioned the educational situation and thereby students’ achievements. Such “process-variables” opened for a new understanding of the scientific study of education. These studies were the forerunners to the “frame-factor model” that was developed into curriculum theory, used in classroom studies where time continued to be a factor that conditioned not only pupil’s achievement but also the overall distribution of pedagogical roles (Lundgren 2015). This new paradigm in the scientific study of education, then, brought in a more complex, contextual and relational conceptualization of education and pupil’s achievement (Englund 2017; Lundgren 2015). In the 1970s and 1980s, scientific studies in Pedagogik/Pedagogy addressed yet other factors that influence education. Psychological perspectives were now challenged and institutional language, power and control as well as production and reproduction of cultural and social assets and habits in and through education became important themes in Swedish research in Pedagogik/Pedagogy (Kallòs & Lundgren 1975, 1979). Curriculum theory was joined with earlier mentioned British Sociologist of Education Basil Bernstein’s notion of “sociolinguistic codes,” and from close cooperation between Bernstein and researchers within curriculum theory studies this was developed into important research on “curriculum codes”. This research “raised new questions about the power and control over education, questions about how the educational system was governed, how curriculum goals were established and content selected” (Lundgren 2015:9). Research informed by curriculum theory further expanded during the 70s and 80s and included researchers in Pedagogik/Pedagogy from many different

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universities in Sweden as well as many areas of investigation. It also paved the way for the introduction of theories coming from a “new sociology of education”. Here, sociological theories from Bernstein, but also from thinkers such as Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), Louis Althusser (1918–1990) and Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) were brought into the scientific study of education performed by Swedish researchers. Furthermore, perspectives on education fetched from the Frankfurt school and critical theory expressed through, for instance, German philosopher Jürgen Habermas became important contributions both for further development of curriculum theory with a focus on conflict, change and communication as well as for the development of the notion of “deliberative democracy” (Englund 2017; Linné 2015, 2018; Lundgren 2015). Yet another essential trajectory in the scientific study of education at this time concerned the “return” to Schleiermacher and Dilthey performed within hermeneutical and historical research. Other important trajectories that influenced the scientific study of education consisted in the development of qualitative ethnographical methods as well as phenomenographical research, inspired by the philosophical school of Phenomenology, that attempted to approach learning and teaching through notions of “surface” and “deep” learning (Englund 2017; Linné 2018). During the 1980s it is didactical perspectives and questions concerning the conditions, content and form of teaching and learning processes that stand in the foreground in the scientific study of education in Sweden. Two major different trajectories of didactic study are here developed from curriculum theory and phenomenographic research on learning and teaching; and even though were differences between these what they had in common was a strong focus on the content of education. Moreover, many didactic studies, even though focused on content, also insisted upon education being first and foremost an ethical and political practice (Englund 2017; Linné 2018). The breaking out of the Anglo-American tradition that occurs by the mid1960s paves the way for a period of scientific study in Swedish Pedagogik/ Pedagogy that seems closer to a Continental tradition. In the period from the 1960s up until the 1990s, even though support was found in sociological theories, the questions evoked and addressed seem profoundly pedagogical. The historical return to the origins in Schleiermacher and Dilthey, paired with the continuous discussions during this period on what characterized Pedagogik/Pedagogy as an independent discipline, particularly in contrast to psychology (Englund 2017; Kallòs & Lundgren 1975,1979; Linné 2018) further enhances this (re)turn to a Continental tradition. For these reasons, together with the fact that the scientific study here pays equal attention to the practice and theory of education – not the least through the didactical focus – this period could be described as both an academic and an integrated knowledge tradition in line with the cases of German Educational Theory and Pedagògija in Latvia presented by Furlong and Whitty (2017). As seen above, during the period from the 1960s up until the 1990s the scientific study of education performed within Pedagogik/Pedagogy is enormously

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productive and rich. This was testified by the evaluation initiated by the Swedish Research Council in the Human and Social Sciences in the mid 1990s. The international committee that assessed Pedagogik/Pedagogy considered both research on teaching and learning, and research within curriculum theory as being of very high quality as well as internationally influential and successful. The latter was described by the committee as being “theoretically sophisticated, historically nuanced, and methodologically complex” and further as “exemplary” in the scientific study of education: International studies of pedagogical practices have been dominated by psychological and organizational theories that are often instrumental in outlook. The Swedish research reported in this chapter, in contrast, provides systematic and intellectually important studies about the relation of State policy to the ‘‘inner core’’ of the school: its curriculum practices, classroom processes, and professional education. The studies are exemplars of the pragmatic relation between theoretical interests and empirical investigation. (Achtenhagen et al. as cited in Lundgren 2015:10–11) Moreover, and interestingly, many of the above-described efforts took place within the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education. The first Colleges of Teacher Education were created in Stockholm 1956, in Malmö 1960 and in Gothenburg 1962, and these three institutions incorporated researchers in Pedagogik/Pedagogy (Hartman 2012; Linné 2018). The idea was not only to create a scientific ground in the formation of future teachers but also to join this with the concrete practice of education. However, during the 1990s decisive shifts in the political governing of both practice and research in education affected this tradition and provoked further incorporation of The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education into university structures (Hartman 2012). These shifts in political governing originated in critique initiated on the other side of the Atlantic and the English Channel (by the Reagan and Thatcher administrations) towards social welfare models and social democratic traditions and this came to severely affect Swedish educational practice and research. Political ideas of a new era marked by a competitive “knowledge society” contributed to state decentralization and a sharp turn towards economic models of governance. This resulted in strong focus on individual responsibility, effectiveness, results and accountability as well as concrete re-organization of societal practices and procedures; education now “became for sale on the market”. This opened the door for many “highest bidders” and enthusiasts, often without any formal scientific competence in educational practice and research, that were happy to join the critique and claim ownership of education on all levels. Joining forces with the media, such critique explicitly addressed not only educational practice (the “crisis” of education and decreasing results in, for instance,

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PISA investigations) but also teacher education, Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the scientific study of education altogether. Despite the contemporaneous scientific evaluation and confirmation of the very high quality of research performed within Pedagogik/Pedagogy, it was in the academic, political and public debate described as lacking “rigorousness” in the scientific study of education (Edling & Liljestrand 2020; Englund 2017, for a similar development in the USA, see further Taubman 2009). This powerful overtake by a new and “advanced” liberal governing of educational practice and research (Rose 1999) severely weakened the presence of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the academic, political and public debate on education (Edling & Liljestrand 2020; Englund 2017; Lundgren 2015). This was further enhanced as administrative and financial support for research and the scientific study of education was re-organized.11 In 2001, a new structure and overarching authority that incorporated earlier discipline-specific councils was created. The Swedish Research Council became the main funder of educational research, whose definition was altered from its origins in Pedagogik/Pedagogy to encompass other scientific disciplines (Lundgren 2015). The scientific study of education was now framed in line with, although without the history of, the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call Disciplines of Educational Sciences/Sciences de l’Éducation. As recalled by Swedish Professor in Pedagogy Ulf P. Lundgren (2015), these political changes had consequences not only for the tradition of curriculum theory studies but also for pedagogy and the scientific study of education altogether: Education or pedagogy as a discipline was fragmented. The discussion around education as a discipline that had formed one root of curriculum theory in Sweden seemed to disappear. These changes reflect a fundamental change in politics in general, and in the politics of education in particular. Curiosity-driven, speculative research vanished and the relationship with policy changed its character. The Swedish committee system changed from a rather large investigative panel with an open mandate which included many experts, to narrower, short-term mandates for studies of consequences of reforms. The role of giving a research-base for planning and policy research now reflects on-going reforms. A market driven educational system must, to be efficient, provide good information about alternatives to this increase in assessment of various forms, which in turn attracts research on assessment. Research will then become a part of the evaluation of reforms, but will also be an instrument for the implementation of reform by focusing normative questions related to on-going ­implementation of reforms. In this context, curriculum research will not bring about new perspectives on basic curriculum questions, but instead it will be scaled down to questions of how to implement various teaching methods within a given political framework. (Lundgren 2015:11)

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Consequently, the above-described academic, political and public critiques, re-organizations and re-distribution of funding put new demands onto Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the scientific study of education in Sweden. These demands could well be described as pertaining to the recent traditions that Furlong and Whitty (2017) frame and classify as the ‘New Science’ of Education and Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards. The former is expressed most powerfully in both political, public and academic claims of more “rigorous” methodologies (RCT’s and statistics) in the scientific study of education in Sweden. The latter is expressed through the strong influence of authorities such as the Swedish National Agency of Education and the Swedish School Inspectorate as well as by the implementation of standards and accountability procedures on all levels – from preschool to university – in educational practice and research. Both traditions are expressed in how educational practice and research are conceived in an almost amalgamated relation to global and local policies and given political frameworks.12 Despite this powerful overtake of the scientific study of education by academic, political and public forces, Swedish researchers in Pedagogik/Pedagogy have persisted in attempts to perform not only rigorous but also (in relation to both accumulated and new knowledge) relevant research in the scientific study of education. Amid all these academic, political and public critiques, re-organizations and financial re-distributions, yet other trajectories for the scientific study of education performed within Pedagogik/Pedagogy have been drawn up. During the 1990s, it was not only academic, social and political governing that changed; so too did intellectual ideas. Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the scientific study of education, perhaps as an intellectual resistance act towards the ongoing simplification of educational practice and research, now turn back to its roots in philosophy. In relation to various interpretations of the “modern” and “post-modern” époques and “the linguistic turn” that occurred within the human and social sciences, post-structural and other philosophical perspectives have since the 1990s been brought into Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the scientific study of education in Sweden. Here, philosophers such as, for instance, Michel Foucault (1926–1984), Emmanuel Levinas (1905–1995), and Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) were useful in the return to some of the classical pedagogical questions and enabled a rethinking of these in the contemporary educational situation (Englund 2017). Also, curriculum theory, research on learning and teaching and the development of qualitative methodologies were nurtured and further developed by this “return to philosophy”. Many of these research efforts, despite their use of “high theory” were – empirical or non-empirical – also connected to educational practices and teacher education. During this time there is also a return to other “classical” theoretical figures such as Mikhail Bakthin (1895–1975), George Herbert Mead (1863–1931), John Dewey (1859–1952), and Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934), the latter becoming important for the socio-cultural theory and

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account of learning and teaching that developed during this time in Swedish research (Englund 2017). The 1990s of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in Sweden, then, seem to persist and persevere in attempts to keep in touch with a Continental tradition (although now geographically widened) as well as with both academic and integrated knowledge traditions (although now intellectually and practically widened) in the scientific study of education. The scientific study of education within Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the new millennium is, according to Swedish Professor in Pedagogy Tomas Englund (2017), marked by continuity and reaction. The philosophical heritage has expanded in Sweden and now covers a wide range of different perspectives and topics. Relational perspectives on educational processes and a focus on pedagogical relations in educational practice have further developed. There has also been further development of the qualitative methods that were initiated during the 1980s, and there is a rich range of studies and networks that use different kinds of Practitioner enquiry/action research. There is, then, an attempt at continuity in the current scientific study of education in Sweden. Processes of globalization and demographic transformations have provoked “reactions” in terms of comparative and transnational studies as well as a renaissance for studies that focus on ethical aspects of education (ibid). There are also attempts to react to the political re-organizations and changes that have occurred since the 1990s. Apart from the many important and critical perspectives and analyses of current and past policy and reform initiatives (ibid), there has also been the creation of a range of sub-disciplines (Lundgren 2015), attempting to both challenge and meet the demands on contemporary education and Pedagogik/Pedagogy. Some of these pay particular attention to teacher education and the relationship between practice and research and could be described as part of the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) frame and classify as Research Informed Clinical Practice. There has also been the creation of many networks, initiated both by practice and universities and these efforts could be described as pertaining to the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call Networked professional knowledge. It is, however, also possible to describe these “reactions” – the new methodologies and the many sub-disciplines and networks – as part of the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call Applied Educational Research and Scholarship.

Differences and Convergences in Pedagogy and Early Childhood Pedagogy: The Case of Sweden One important claim in this book is that ECEC has been, and should continue to be, part of a pedagogical knowledge tradition. Swedish scientific studies specifically addressing ECEC have taken place both within but also parallel to the above-described development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy. Research efforts in ECEC have contributed to the development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy as a knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education in Sweden, but there are also specificities to scientific study in the early years that should be taken

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into account.13 On that matter, a first important thing to note is that it took roughly 60 years after Hammer’s installation for the first female professor in ECEC, Stina Sandels (1908–1990), to be installed at the Stockholm Teacher College. It took yet more than 25 years for the next female Professors in ECEC Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson, Gunilla Dahlberg and Ingegerd Tallberg Broman to be installed at Gothenburg University and Stockholm and Malmö Teacher Colleges (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016; Linné 2018; Simmons-Christensen 1977; Tallberg Broman 2018). Obviously, the position of women and lack of positions for women have throughout history influenced the scientific study of ECEC (Englund et al. 2020).14 It is also true that in many cases, and with few exceptions, the world of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in its early formation was an academic world of men rarely interested in the very youngest children and the practice of the earliest forms of ECEC (Tallberg Broman 2018).15 Even though this book argues that ECEC belongs to a pedagogical knowledge tradition (possible to compare also with Furlong and Whitty’s classification and framing of knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education), it is still important to indicate where, when and how the scientific study of ECEC differs in significant ways. That said, also ECEC has its roots in philosophy and was initially practiced and studied in close connection to German philosopher Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), who came to be the main philosophical resource for the “reform-pedagogical” movement that took shape by the end of the 19th century in ECEC in Sweden (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016; Tallberg Broman 1995, 2018; Fredricson 2020). Of particular interest in this initial phase of formation is the very close connection between the practice of the earliest forms of early childhood centres in Sweden – Kindergartens – and philosophical thought. The term “kindergarten” was a direct expression and symbol for the idea of the “Garden of Paradise” and Froebel’s wish for such a place for the youngest children (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016:27). The first female pioneers of ECEC in Sweden, Anna Eklund (1872–1942), Ellen Moberg (1874–1955), Maria Moberg (1877–1949) and Maria Kjellmark (1863–1942) initiated such Kindergartens in Sweden (Eklund in Stockholm 1896, Ellen and Maria Moberg in Norrköping 1899, and Maria Kjellmark in Örebro 1902). They developed Froebel’s philosophical thoughts on the importance of aesthetics, bildung, erziehung and play in direct relation to the practice of Kindergartens (Hammarström-Lewenhagen 2016; Tallberg Broman 2018; Fredricson 2020). Froebel and the female pioneers were also inspired by Swiss philosopher Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), not the least his ideas of “education for all” through the symbiosis of “heart-hand-mind”, as well as by Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and the idea of childhood as the innocent and “golden age” during which children may develop into free and independent individuals (Dahlberg & Lenz Taguchi 1994; Tallberg Broman 2018). In a Swedish context the practice and theory of Otto Salomon (1849–1907), the founder of the Swedish subject matter “slöjd” (handicraft, and the “joining of hand and head”) and the “Slöjdseminar” at Nääs, who in his turn also was inspired by both Froebel and Pestalozzi, was another great inspiration

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for the female pioneers (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016).16 Further practical and philosophical inspiration for the early female pioneers came from Maria Montessori (1870–1952) and her insistence both upon the individual child’s freedom and independent learning and the necessity of a well-organized pedagogical environment (ibid). The development and use of these philosophical ideas in the practice of Swedish Kindergartens was enhanced by an international “spirit” and exchange of knowledge that may surprise today. These early female pioneers (well before our contemporary universities created Departments of Internationalisation, Communication and initiatives for Practice-based research) explored an international context, not the least through study travel to German Kindergartens and courses taken at the Pestalozzi-Fröbelhaus in Berlin and the Froebel Educational Institute in London, in an attempt to find, exchange and develop new knowledge to make direct use of in their educational practices (ibid).17 Furthermore, the female pioneers also created institutes or seminars for the formation of Kindergarten teachers (Stockholm Froebel-seminar, 1905; Örebro Froebelseminar, 190218, Norrköping Froebel-institute, 1909) (Simmons-Christensen 1977; Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016; Tellgren 2008). At this early stage, then, and even though taking place mainly outside the academic institutions where Hammer and Herrlin were active, scientific study in the early years may be described as part of a Continental tradition and what Furlong and Whitty (2017) classify as a singular academic German Educational Tradition – it is from these philosophical questions and resources that ECEC is initiated in Sweden. But this formative period in ECEC must also be described as an integrated knowledge tradition, expressed not the least in how the practice and theory of ECEC were treated in such intimate closeness. Similarly, but in a different way, as with the general development of Pedagogik/ Pedagogy the first part of the 20th century’s scientific study in ECEC is marked by psychological perspectives and questions (Dahlberg & Åsén 1986). However, the “breaking-point” for the replacement of Continental and philosophical perspectives with a psychological perspective in the study of ECEC is dated to around the 1920s (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016). Neither is it exactly the same kind of psychology that occurs here; even though also empirical and natural science-inspired in its character, the psychology that dominates the scientific study of ECEC in this early period is a “new psychology of childhood” (ibid). More specifically, it is here a question of “developmental psychology”, inspired by Charlotte Bühler (1893–1974) and Elsa Köhler’s (1879–1940) psychological research in and especially Köhler became important for this shift to psychological perspectives in Swedish ECEC. In close cooperation with Ellen and Maria Moberg she introduced scientific observation as a tool for early childhood educators in their practical work. Further, the concept of “activity-pedagogy” as well as the importance of departing from children’s interests, aesthetic activities and play are themes that were discussed in depth and that both joined and challenged the Froebelinspired Kindergarten activities during this time. Köhler’s theoretical inspiration

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came mainly from Belgian psychologist Jean-Ovid Decroly (1871–1932) and Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) (ibid). Importantly, though, at this stage, there is still a connection to Froebel and also to Dewey, which results in an attempt to keep a focus on pedagogical questions and perspectives (Tallberg Broman 2018).19 During the period between the 1920–1940s, there seems, then, to be a (sometimes conflictual, see further Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016) “negotiation” between whether to stay within a Continental philosophical tradition, or whether to abandon this and go fully into an Anglo-American academic tradition of psychology. Further, and as stated above, from the Anglo-American perspective that dominated the differential psychology in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy at this time, scientific observation was seen as the “last satisfying substitute” for the scientific study of education. This constitutes a difference between ECEC and the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy as the former engaged precisely in such observation rather than in large experimental and statistical studies. The preference for scientific observation in ECEC may be explained by a strong focus on the close relationship between practice and research and the “philosophy-in-use” (as in the Latvian tradition) that marks this context, which also makes the scientific study in this time period resemble what Furlong and Whitty (2017) call an integrated knowledge tradition. As with the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the connection between scientific study and state reforms, also the “new psychology of childhood” was put into service in state reforms of public care and education for the youngest children. A prominent figure here is social-democratic politician Alva Myrdal (1902–1986) who initiated many social and political reforms concerning ECEC in Sweden, not the least the creation of state funding for preschools in the 1940s. Further, in Stockholm by the mid 30s, two institutes, or “seminars” were created for the formation of early childhood educators in the “new psychology of childhood”: Södra K.F.U.K.:s pedagogiska institut and Socialpedagogiska seminariet and Myrdal served as Rector for the former (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016; Tallberg Broman 2018). During this time the psychological perspectives, now with strong inspiration from American child psychology (much because of Myrdal’s connections), gain further ground and by the beginning of the 1950s it is the dominating perspective in the practice and scientific study of ECEC in Sweden. This period of the 1940s could be described as pertaining to an Anglo-American tradition and, due to the strong dominance of psychology, to the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation. It is now another discipline than pedagogy – psychology – that governs the scientific study of ECEC. However, the character of an integrated knowledge tradition still persists, as equal attention is paid to the practice and research of ECEC. During the period from the 1950s and into the 1970s psychological perspectives in the scientific study of ECEC are further developed, and attention is paid to children’s mental, psychological, physical, moral “normal” and

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“deviant” development according to certain identified and identifiable stages. Apart from earlier mentioned psychologist Piaget, also American psychologist Arnold Gesell (1880–1961) and American psychoanalyst Erik Homburger Erikson (1992–1994) became important for the scientific study in ECEC.20 In tune with the socio-political development of society at large during the 1970s, not the least concerning questions of equality, several different psychological perspectives are brought in. Relational and communicational psychology, dialogue, interaction and pedagogical relations became important in the scientific study of ECEC at this time (Dahlberg & Åsén 1986). Other efforts performed during this period are exemplified by Professor in Pedagogy, Karl-Gustav Stukát’s comparative study in the late 1960s of how children that were enrolled in preschool performed everyday routines, in relation to children that were not enrolled (Pramling Samuelsson 2015). Similar to the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, and as stated with the example of Myrdal above, there are still close connections between research and state reforms in ECEC during the period 1950–1970. However, reforms often occur at different times in ECEC and the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy. The institute/seminars where early childhood educators were trained mentioned above were, for instance, incorporated into the teacher colleges and the Normal College Tradition of Teacher Education in 1977, 10 years after their creation. Incorporated in this structure was also the Research Institute for Child Psychology, led by earlier mentioned Professor Stina Sandels. By the mid 1970s there is, again, another “breaking-point” in the scientific study of ECEC in Sweden that took place both within and parallel to the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy. During the 1970s and 80s begins the formulation of a critique of the developmental and psychological perspectives in ECEC (Kallòs 1978). In line with the turn towards “the social” and a “new sociology of education” in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, also the scientific study of ECEC changes its focus. The individual and psychological perspectives are now challenged by a turn to processes of socialization and organizational factors, not the least conceptions of gender, that influence and affect individual children (Dahlberg & Åsén 1986; Klerfeldt 2002; Persson 2008). This is followed up during the early 1980s when research on values, ethics and democracy in ECEC is common, and where, like in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, questions of institutional power and control are in focus. During the mid-1980s and over into the 1990s, research also focused the relation between reforms initiated during this period, not the least the great expansion of ECEC and the relation between actors on different levels in the ECEC system, as well as the effects of ECEC on children’s later development and learning (Klerfeldt 2002). Again, in a similar fashion to the general development of Pedagogik/ Pedagogy, during the 1980s and into the 1990s, there is a focus on didactic questions in the scientific study of ECEC in Sweden and two major directions are here drawn up. As with the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy,

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one trajectory departs from a phenomenographical perspective and focuses the content and “learning-object” as well as children’s varying perceptions and understanding of this in teaching and learning processes. The other trajectory departs from curriculum theory and the context, content and form of ECEC, but here also with inspiration from post-structuralist perspectives and social constructionism as well as the pedagogical practice and philosophy in the early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy (Dahlberg & Åsén 1986; Klerfeldt 2002; Lind 2001; Persson 2008). The latter trajectory also contributed to a large number of Professional Networks where teachers and researchers cooperated around philosophical, pedagogical and didactical questions in ECEC. Perhaps there is during this period a slight difference in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, as there seems to be a larger focus on studies of methods (Klerfeldt 2002) and also a greater variation in the scientific study of ECEC. The end of the 1980s and into the 1990s concerns a period where, apart from the above-mentioned trajectories, research on children’s own perspectives and their meaning-making, learning and development are in focus in several research efforts. In the beginning of the 1990s, there are also some historical studies that address various aspects of ECEC pedagogy, the image of the child, as well as care givers’ perspective. These became important, as historical studies had been lacking during the 1980s (ibid). There is also research on children’s play and aesthetics, communication, early reading and writing, children’s rights, children with “special needs”, and everyday routines in ECEC as well as research on its interior and exterior environment. There is research on different systems of evaluation and on the profession of ECEC educators, not the least how constructions of gender in various texts and contexts have affected the profession, but also children. There is also a large variety of theoretical trajectories; phenomenographical and post-structural perspectives as well as perspectives from social constructionism, symbolic interactionism, system-theory and cultural-historical, hermeneutical, ecological, ethnological, ethnographical and phenomenological perspectives are present in the scientific study of ECEC during this period. Methodologies during the early 1980s were to an equal extent of quantitative and qualitative character, but this changed and by the 1990s it is predominantly qualitative studies that mark the scientific study of ECEC in Sweden (Klerfeldt 2002; Lind 2001). Scientific studies in ECEC from the mid 1970s and into the 1990s may, then, due to a certain critique of and detachment from psychological perspectives and a turn to questions and perspectives that are more of a cultural, societal, pedagogical and didactical character, be described as gradually returning to a Continental and singular academic knowledge tradition (Klerfeldt 2002). But the scientific study of ECEC in this period is also, due to the persevering strong attention paid to both practice and research, identifiable as an integrated knowledge tradition (Furlong & Whitty 2017). The political changes and re-organizations that occurred within the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the 1990s occur at the same time in ECEC and strongly affect also the practice and scientific study of ECEC. Perhaps

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particularly in this context as the instrumental rationality that these political changes embrace do not fit well with the tradition of simultaneous care and education for and with the youngest children. Since these changes and re-organizations occurred, also ECEC has lived and continues to live with demands that the recent traditions that Furlong and Whitty (2017) classify as the ‘New Science’ of Education and Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards pose upon education. There is a demand for more “rigorous” methodologies (RCT’s and statistics) and strong influence of authorities such as the Swedish National Agency of Education and the Swedish School Inspectorate as well as implementation of standards and accountability procedures in ECEC practice and research. As with the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy the scientific study of ECEC has been re-organized in line with, although without the history of, the tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) call Disciplines of Education/Science de l’Éducation. However, research in ECEC is still predominantly performed by researchers with a background as early childhood educators, something which may explain the persevering focus and equal attention to the practice and theory of ECEC (Tallberg Broman et al. 2015). The development of different sub-disciplines within the tradition of Applied Educational Research and Scholarship has also affected Swedish ECEC, and, even though ECEC as shown above has developed both within and parallel to Pedagogik/Pedagogy, it is today common that research in ECEC is conducted in such settings (ibid). From the 1990s and up until the contemporary situation, the scientific study of ECEC seems to follow, to a large extent, the general development of Pedagogik/ Pedagogy. Although perhaps the “turn back to philosophy” in ECEC to a larger extent concerned the use of philosophy for critical consideration of the “psychological legacy” that still prevails in ECEC. Not the least in terms of a feminist and post-structural critique of children and women’s position within the “art of social engineering” that had developed through the close connection between research and state reforms in Swedish society. In any case, many of the philosophers mentioned above (Foucault, Levinas, Derrida) and others were brought into the scientific study of ECEC (Persson 2008; Tallberg Broman et al. 2015). In ECEC, like in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, scientific study is marked by both “continuity” and “reactions”, the first exemplified by a continuous focus on philosophical rather than psychological perspectives and questions, by further development of curriculum theory and by further focus on the specificity of ECEC in relation to other school forms. There is a continuous focus on children’s learning and meaning-making, pedagogical relations, play, aesthetics, ethics and the pedagogical environment (Persson 2008; Tallberg Broman et al. 2015). The “reactions” may be exemplified through critical analysis of policy discourses, state reforms, quality and evaluation as well as of the profession of ECEC educators, gender and ability and the changing features of these. Furthermore, there is now, in contrast to earlier periods, research that addresses processes of globalization and demographic transformations, including children’s second language learning (Åsén & Vallberg Roth 2012; Persson 2008) and, due

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to the introduction of the concepts of assessment and teaching in Swedish ECEC, there is also research on these themes (Tallberg Broman et al. 2015). Apart from the return to the philosophical resources mentioned above, also other theoretical figures mentioned in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy are present in the scientific study in ECEC during the period from the 1990s up until today and, lately, there has also been the development of various post-humanist and new materialist perspectives. The research methodologies used are still predominantly of a qualitative character (Tallberg Broman et al. 2015). Scientific study in ECEC in the period from 1990 and into the new millennium, then, like the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy, still resembles a Continental singular academic tradition, and still seems to belong to what Furlong and Whitty (2017) frame and classify as an integrated knowledge tradition as the tight relation between research and practice continues to be present.

Summarizing Discussion and an Old-new/New-old Direction It is interesting that almost all knowledge traditions that Furlong and Whitty (2017) classify and frame, at one point or another, may be related to the historical and socio-political context and development of the scientific study of education in Sweden. This goes to show that their classification and framing may be of great use and that it would be beneficial to explore such contexts and developments in more countries. What stands out in the Swedish context and development of Pedagogik/ Pedagogy is the perpetual navigating between two singular academic traditions. There seems to be a continuous negotiation of whether education should be studied within a singular academic Continental knowledge tradition like (but not similar to) German Educational Theory or a singular academic AngloAmerican tradition like (but not similar to) Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation. However, even during periods when the latter tradition dominates, it seems to be accompanied, sooner or later, with struggles to define Pedagogik/ Pedagogy as an independent discipline, particularly as detached from the discipline of Psychology. What also stands out in this historical development of the knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy and ECEC is that the initial two directions: natural-empiricist and idealist-rational, and the tension between these, prevail throughout the decades and into our contemporary educational situation. In the beginning, when Pedagogik/Pedagogy was connected to philosophy, it is the second direction, the idealist-rational, that dominates. When psychology and the early forms of sociology are brought into the scientific study of education in the first half of the 20th century it is the first direction, the natural empiricist, that rule. As a reaction towards this, a new focus on the social – a “new sociology” and didactic perspectives are brought in, capable of challenging a too strong focus on the individual and the scientific study modelled on the natural sciences. The political changes and re-organizations that during the 1990s attempt not only

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to replace Pedagogik/Pedagogy with “multidisciplinary” study but also to promote natural-empirical scientific study through “new” science and “generic” forms of knowledge production, are answered by a return to philosophy, closer to the initial idealist-rational trajectory. This “double condition” of the knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy and the scientific study of education is also prolonged into the problem of whether and how practice and research could and should be connected. This is particularly accentuated in the case of ECEC that throughout its historical development seems to struggle to keep practice and research intimately connected, but it is also visible in the general development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy where this seems to be a re-occurring issue. In fact, one of the most burning questions for the future of the scientific study of education is, according to Furlong and Whitty (2017), exactly this relationship between research and practice, and more specifically, how such relationships may be joined with the accumulation of theoretical and practical knowledge in a disciplinary setting. The conclusion they draw is that the most promising way to go is to further explore and develop integrated knowledge traditions, as this “is of vital importance for the future of the field as whole” (Furlong & Whitty 2017:49). This, paired with the history of Pedagogik/Pedagogy as an academic and singular knowledge tradition, where nevertheless equal attention is paid to the practice and research of education, motivates the placement of pedagogy in this book. Pedagogy is here and in what follows treated as belonging to both a singular and an integrated academic knowledge tradition.

Resonances Between Bergson’s Philosophy and Pedagogy/Pedagogik Such placement of pedagogy is not only motivated by history and the need for further invention, but also by the resonances that may be found between Bergson’s philosophy and pedagogy. The features and consequences of both “singularity” and “integration” in the knowledge tradition of pedagogy have resonances with Bergson’s philosophy. These resonances were initially described in the first part of this book, below they are further described in relation to the above account of pedagogy as a knowledge tradition in the scientific study of education. First, Bergson’s philosophy and the early formation of pedagogy occur at roughly the same time in history and they are both marked by a “double condition”. The two initial directions drawn up in pedagogy, a scientific natural-empiricist and a metaphysical idealist-rational, resonate in an almost flagrant way with Bergson’s attempt to precisely address the relation between the natural sciences, including psychophysics, and the metaphysical thought and philosophy of his time. Obviously, the preceding “scientific revolutions” concerning both the earthbound/material and the spiritual/philosophical aspects of humans and the world left few untouched during the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. As said in Chapter 2, Bergson directed critique towards both psychophysics in terms of such science being “too narrow” and metaphysics in terms of such

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philosophy being “too wide” for reality. In a similar fashion, and as said above, psychophysics in pedagogy suffered from reducing education to a focus on means and methods and therefore lacking a notion of aims and ends for education, and metaphysics in pedagogy suffered from lack of preciseness and use in relation to the physical and material practice of education: psychophysics was “too narrow” and metaphysics “too wide” for educational realities. As Bergson challenged not only psychophysics and metaphysics per se but also their relation, there seems to be much more of value to further explore in the resonances between Bergson’s philosophy and pedagogy. Second, the prolongation of the problem of natural-empiricist and idealist-­ rational directions in pedagogy is expressed throughout its history as also concerning a problem of the relationship between research and practice: should education be studied through appeal to practical experience or through relying upon theoretical reasoning? Or in more epistemological terms: should education be studied through empiricist or rationalist approaches? Here, Bergson’s challenges to both empiricists and rationalists have been introduced already in Chapter 2 of this book, but there certainly seems to be a lot more to be discovered for pedagogy here. Not the least the idea of a more “radically empirical” science mentioned above. Third, throughout the history of pedagogy there are attempts to, sooner or later, detach oneself from psychology. Even though deeply set in an interest for the “spiritual”, as seen already in Chapter 2, Bergson directed sharp critique towards the notion of psychological “states” and “the unity of self as a form without matter”. As also already seen, especially in the development of ECEC above, there has always been attention to how “heart, head and mind” may be joined in education. However, this occurred before psychology entered the scene of the scientific study of education, and here there are interesting resources in Bergson’s notion of the relation between matter and mind, that, as seen in Chapter 2, distinguishes his work from psychology. As stated by Deleuze: Hence Bergson does something entirely different from psychology, because matter is more an ontological principle of intelligence than some mere intelligence is a psychological principle of matter itself or of space. (Deleuze 2004a:23) To pay equal attention to “matter” and “intelligence” (or to “spirit” and “matter”) in education may, then, be done without having recourse only to psychology, and this certainly needs to be further explored. There are also some small and surprising direct relations between Bergson’s philosophy and pedagogy here worth mentioning. As already stated, the first Swedish Professor in Pedagogy, Bertil Hammer was not convinced by the positivist tendencies and natural-science-inspired models that seeped into the discipline of Pedagogy at the beginning of the 20th century. Just like Bergson, he was critical of the psychophysics of his time, and he chose to define the task

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of pedagogy in terms of the wider concept “upbringing”. Pedagogy’s scientific study of “upbringing” was also broadened to include (1) a philosophical direction concerning the aims of upbringing, (2) an individual or psychological direction concerning the individual, biological and psychological aspects of upbringing and (3) a social direction concerning historical and social aspects of upbringing (Linné 2018:71). More specifically, and again in resonance with Bergson’s philosophy, Hammer claimed against the tradition of positivist and natural-science-inspired study of education that pedagogy rather should engage in and study the complex and qualitative everyday events of educational life. Hammer even spoke, in a very Bergsonian fashion, of a “‘life-synthesis’ psychology, that teaches us to see and recognize the human being as she appears in life and history”, and how it should focus “the problem of how life shapes the human individuality” 21 (Hammer as cited in Säfström 1994:61, my translation). This life included the spiritual lives of children, pupils and teachers, which, according to Hammer, just as to Bergson, is not quantifiable: To directly measure spiritual phenomena is certainly not possible – one cannot speak of a centimetre of uneasiness.22 (Hammer as cited in Kroksmark 1991:159, my translation) Other important themes in Hammer’s work also testify to this resonance with Bergson’s work. For instance, “attention”, as this is dealt with in his dissertation (1908), Uppmärksamhetens problem inom den nyare psykologin and “interest” (for the content rather than form of literary text) as it is treated in (1906) Intressemetoden. Bidrag till den första läsundervisningens pedagogik: om den första läsundervisningen. Hammer was also critical against the way “intelligence” is being tested at the time (Kroksmark 1991:222), as well as against the devaluation of emotion in relation to intelligence (Kroksmark 1991:206–207). Further, Hammer explicitly talks of intuitive pedagogy. In Experimentell och intuitiv pedagogik (1909), he claims the efficacy of natural-science-inspired psychology to be “highly overestimated”23 and that the “genius of pedagogy”24 is to be found in the everyday life of education (Kroksmark 1991:159–160, my translation). According to Kroksmark, for Hammer, it is the method of intuition and a focus on lived and real educational life that will constitute a pedagogical alternative to experimental psychology: The research-method that the new pedagogy should develop, and that Hammer calls intuitive, shall focus a number of immediate images from everyday life, or a series of cross-sections or penetrating investigations of reality, such as they actually occur.25 (Kroksmark 1991:160, my translation) Hence, the direct connections to Bergsonian themes, particularly that of an appeal to real experiences and events through intuition, are obvious. However,

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it is unclear whether Hammer ever was in contact with, or read, Bergson. Hammer was, though, part of the few pedagogues that at that time were working within a humanist rather than a natural science tradition of pedagogy, and two of his contemporaries professor in philosophy John Landqvist (1881–1974) and Swedish author and teacher at reform-pedagogical schools in Stockholm, Emilia Fogelklou (1878–1972), were heavily inspired by Bergson (Kroksmark 1991:259; Nahnfeldt 2009). Fogelklou, even though mainly focused on older children, was also involved in the development of the “new psychology” in the reform-pedagogical movement and gave, for instance, a psychological-pedagogical course during the Third Nordic Kindergarten Reunion in Sigtuna, Sweden, 1931 (Hammarström Lewenhagen 2016:157). Yet another Swedish philosopher of interest for pedagogy and with whom there are direct links to Bergson’s philosophy is Hans Larsson (1862–1944). Larsson was installed as a Professor in Theoretical Philosophy at Lund University in 1901 and was engaged in pedagogy before it became an independent discipline. He was directly inspired by Bergson and put his thoughts to use also in pedagogical questions. In 1899 he wrote Intuitionsproblemet. Särskilt med hänsyn till Henri Bergson’s teori and in 1912 Intuitionsproblemet (Kroksmark 1991:79). Larsson claimed a close relationship between philosophy, science and the arts and had a somewhat “aesthetic” notion of intuition as a question of the “mediation” between physical sensuous experiences and idealist-rational thought. In line with this and with Bergson’s words in the quote that ended the first part of this book, he specifically insisted upon the necessity of both intuitive and discursive thought (Kroksmark 1991:78–79). There are, then, resonances between Bergson’s philosophy and pedagogy that is of importance, and there is also something that tells of potential as to how philosophy and science may be revisited, revivified and reunited in a way that may harbour a more interesting, complex and comprehensive science for education. As said, the “doubleness” that Bergson makes visible in all matters is echoed in the double condition of pedagogy. Not the least concerning the question of how, in education, intuition may be joined with discursive thought. Hans Larsson eloquently formulated this in one of his lectures in 1906: Learn from Pestalozzi, learn from Rousseau. Conduct a lesson after the one, and another after the other. See in all so called pedagogical systems only a new concept next to the others. They are all needed, but they are all only elements of one and the same method, whose complete formula has not yet been completed. Rousseau argues for the intuitive treatment, Pestalozzi for the discursive: two demands that are opposite but not contradictory; only superficiality may disregard the one or the other.26 (Larsson as cited in Kroksmark 1991:79–80, my translation) As stated by Bergson already at the end of Part I of the present book and as seen above: to join the intuitive and the discursive has been a common problem for

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philosophy and pedagogy, and it may be precisely here that they can meet in a science that is more “radically empirical”. On condition, of course, that they both continue to develop and progress. Then, and only then, can a joint effort by philosophy and science be capable of addressing real, becoming and free educational experiences and events. As stated in the introduction to this chapter: “It is reality itself, in the profoundest meaning of the word that we reach by the combined and progressive development of science and of philosophy” (Bergson 1907/2007:128).

Change of Direction: Introduction to the Grammar and Semantics of Pedagogy In this chapter we have travelled through the history of pedagogy in a horizontal and chronological direction. In the next chapter, the direction changes and the journey will go deep into the vertical and vertiginous semantics and sense of pedagogy. This, however, to not become an insurmountable task, demands a framework of some sort. In the next chapter this is attempted through drawing up a syntax and a grammar where the sense and semantics of pedagogy can be conceptualized. This is one way of making the task of accounting for pedagogy more precise, but it is also a way of attempting to join and reunite the discursive and the intuitive in a more “radically empirical science”. The discursive can be understood not only as Larsson does above, as pertaining more to certain pedagogical figures than others (even though this is an important insight), but it can also be brought to the level of philosophy of science – the branch of philosophy that studies different scientific disciplines’ foundational ontological, epistemological and methodological claims, contents and forms. The discursive is in the next chapter treated as such through displaying syntax and grammar that identifies the words, domains, phenomena, dimensions, logic, methodology as well as the knowledge-object of pedagogy. The intuitive belongs to the side of sense and semantics of the syntaxial and grammatical components that will be filled by more personal, embodied and heartfelt experiences of pedagogy. It is, then, a singular account that makes no more far-reaching claims than serving as one example of how pedagogy may be both discursively and intuitively understood. That said, the next chapter is also a gentle invitation to other scholars in education and pedagogy to try out the syntax and grammar to see if its holds also for their semantics and sense of pedagogy.27 The experiences that will be made to exemplify the sense and semantics of pedagogy in the next chapter come from three main resources: (1) a selection of historic and contemporary pedagogical accounts and figures, (2) resonances between Bergson’s philosophy and education drawn up in Chapter 2 of the present book and (3) the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in the North Italian town Reggio Emilia. The last of these resources may already be well-known to many, as this pedagogy has travelled the world and inspired practice and research in many different local and global contexts. A short introduction is, however, in its place,

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particularly as this pedagogy in the most clear and precise way has developed and made visible the aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions of education so central to the present book (Cagliari et al. 2016; Giamminuti, Merewether & Blaise 2021; Hoyuelos 2013; Rinaldi 2006; Vecchi 2010).28 The pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia has a long and rich history. The early years of formation took place in a turbulent political climate in the aftermaths of the Second World War where a group of women together with pedagogue Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994) started up a new public school in the small village Cella on the outskirts of the town Reggio Emilia. Against the horrors of war and fascism, the school and the pedagogy were immediately coloured by an appeal to the political values of democracy and the values brought forward by the French Revolution: Liberty, Egality, Fraternity (Rinaldi 2006). Education was seen as “a weapon against poverty, ignorance, arrogance; education as a tool for freedom” (ibid:178–179). To foster and educate in accordance with these values demanded attention to the political dimension of education – to educate for freedom, but also the delicate task of doing this through educating through freedom. As recalled by Reggio Emilia’s Mayor during the years 1962–1976, Renzo Bonazzi: “Mussolini and the fascists made us understand that obedient human beings are dangerous human beings. When we decided to build a new society after the war we understood that we needed to have schools in which children dared to think for themselves, and where children got the conditions for becoming active and critical citizens” (Bonazzi as cited in Dahlberg 2016:ix). For an education through and for freedom, then, also aesthetical and ethical dimensions of education, capable of giving both children and adults the conditions needed for living and thinking “freely”, were already in the beginning an essential part of the pedagogy. As recalled by Swedish Professor in Pedagogy Gunilla Dahlberg the development of this pedagogy and the early childhood centres are renowned as one of the more beautiful stories about meaningfulness in life, something which she states may be a sign of aesthetics and ethics in the widest sense: In his writings Loris Malaguzzi refers to what happened in Villa Cella as one of the events in his life when he felt most alive. ‘Beautiful’ and ‘alive’ – a form of aesthetics and ethics in its widest sense, related to meaningfulness, empowerment and openness to change, and fundamental to Malaguzzi’s struggle both to renew education and to make a more just and better society for all children. (Dahlberg 2016:ix) To this end and over the many years that the pedagogy and the schools have flourished, a number of important “strategies” for activating aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions in education have developed, of which some of the most important could be said to be a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation, progettazione (a research approach in the daily life and project-works with groups of children) and an active attention paid to the pedagogical environment (Giamminuti 2013;

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Hoyuelos 2013; Rinaldi 2006; Vecchi 2010). Theoretical tools that have been used and further developed in this pedagogy range from various continental philosophical and pedagogical thinkers to perspectives coming from the human, social, biological, natural, technical and political sciences – each time treated in both a critical and creative way in an attempt to “use theory, really, for interpreting, and not to be used, as we say, by theory” (Rinaldi 2006:182). The pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, even though not primarily and formally taking place in an academic setting, could, then, be said to be close to both a singular and an integrated knowledge tradition (Furlong & Whitty 2017). The roots in continental philosophy and pedagogy are strong and still nurtured, but at the same time the knowledge tradition is singular in a wider sense than the German educational tradition, and this for two reasons indicated above: (1) the practice is considered and run as research and vice versa, (2) the importance of transdisciplinary aspects and efforts in early childhood education practice and research is constantly highlighted (Rinaldi 2006). This does not, however, imply that the pedagogy is particularly close to an AngloAmerican tradition and the Disciplines of Education – the pedagogical core and its roots in various continental pedagogical and philosophical perspectives are much too strong for that being the case. The pedagogy may instead be described as one very fine example of a singular and integrated knowledge tradition that Furlong and Whitty (2017) calls for above. It presents an excellent example of how practice and research with very young children provoke precision both in act and thought, and this is something that could serve as a source of inspiration also for purely academic settings and knowledge traditions. For these reasons too, there is no attempt in this present book to “analyze” the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia. That is already and continuously being done by all protagonists active there. Rather, the contribution here resides simply in creating an encounter between this pedagogy and some of the metaphysical, historical and contemporary pedagogical resources that are activated in the present book. This is what the next chapter with its drawing up of a syntax and grammar and a semantics and sense of pedagogy will do.

Notes 1 According to Hordern (2017) and Furlong & Whitty (2017) Bernstein’s conceptualization of “horizontal/profane” and “vertical/sacred” discourses and structures in knowledge-production, springs from Émile Durkheim’s (1858–1917) conceptualization and distinction of the “profane” and the “sacred”. 2 Such efforts may indeed be performed regardless of whether one inscribes oneself in the knowledge tradition of Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation. My own context at the Department of Childhood, Education and Society at Malmö University is a pertinent example of how different scientific disciplines and perspectives may collaborate in inter- and even transdisciplinary, rather than undefined “multidisciplinary”, scientific study of education. Here, pedagogical, historical, sociological, philosophical and critical-didactical perspectives join in a “core” set of educational questions that are collaboratively approached and there is also, in contrast to how

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Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation function, a very close relation to teacher education and to educational practice. I would also like to mention a current and ongoing research and innovation project funded by the European Commission, Smooth Educational Common Spaces – Passing through Enclosures and Reversing Inequalities. In this large project (12 universities and cultural institutions under the leadership of PI Associate Professor in Sociology of Early Childhood Education Ioannis Pechtelidis, University of Thessaly, Greece) researchers from such varied disciplines as pedagogy, sociology, political history, archaeology, museology, technology, economy, media and communication and the arts, join in efforts to explore the potential of the growing paradigm of The Commons and innovative methods such as a pedagogy of listening, project-work and pedagogical documentation as resources for equal and inclusive education (Pechtelidis & Kiuopkiolis 2020). In other projects, I have benefitted greatly from collaboration with researchers in architecture and art when addressing questions of the material conditions and the aesthetic dimension of ECEC (see for instance Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015). Further examples of the great benefit of disciplinary studies in education is Cultural Geography and its sub-disciplines, not the least, the discipline of Children’s Geographies, that especially in the contemporary educational situation, marked as it is by geopolitical transformation and lack of attention to the material place and condition of educational practice, harbours treasures for the scientific study of education (see for instance, Aitkens 2014 and Tebet & Abramowicz 2018). 3 As economic funding and distribution of resources has transformed into a model where universities get paid by the number of students that “gets through” the system, obviously the teacher education programs, that often have the largest number of students, are of interest to any university (and not necessarily, then, because universities all of a sudden have developed a passionate interest for educating teachers). However, how the funding then is re-distributed, that is, whether and what teacher education gets from what was originally given to it by the state, or whether there are other prioritizations made is an open question. This is yet another example of a question in education that would benefit from a large-scale and preferably international and comparative statistical study. 4 This is in no way a critique of Furlong and Witty’s study; their study did not include the case of Sweden, and I know all too well that all classification, framing, and summarizing inevitably leaves stuff out. The study is a truly excellent piece of work, and by adding Sweden as yet another example of knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education, I am just following Furlong and Witty’s call for scholars to do exactly that: depart from their study, add examples and “contribute to the debate about the future of this vitally important area of scholarship” (Furlong & Witty 2017:50). 5 The first part of this account is built upon Swedish Professors in Pedagogy Thomas Kroksmark (1991) and Carl Anders Säfströms (1994) account of the early history of the development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy as a scientific discipline in Sweden. The description of the following development is largely built upon Swedish Professors in Pedagogy Agneta Linné (2015, 2018) and Tomas Englund’s (2017) accounts of important “breaking-points” and “tendencies” in the development of Pedagogik/ Pedagogy in Sweden. Just as both Linné and Englund’s accounts point out, there is no question of covering and naming all research performed – it is rather the general development and exactly such “breaking-points and tendencies” that are in focus. However, I also add something to these accounts by trying to describe the development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the Swedish context in relation to Furlong and Whitty’s (2017) classification and framing of current knowledge traditions in the scientific study of education. 6 As Swedish Professor in the History of Ideas, Bengt Kristensson Uggla (2019) remarks, the very notion of ”scientific revolution” is anachronistic; there was no such conception of science at this time. Such anachronism is, however, and according to Kristensson Uggla, inevitable and may be used consciously and with care. I am aware that the way

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I try to describe and compare the historical development of Pedagogik/Pedagogy with Furlong and Whitty’s (2017) classification contains several such anachronisms. I, however, still think it is worthwhile to do this, as it may clarify the position of pedagogy in the contemporary educational situation. 7 Impossible not to mention this “largest wonder in the world history”, as I have just recently found my home in Skåne, Sweden, the place where, according to Kristensson Uggla, Brahe discovered “the transformability” of the universe, and thereby initiated the “scientific revolution”… (Kristensson Uggla 2019:116) 8 Herbart took over Kant’s chair in in Königsberg 1809. 9 To use yet another “anachronistic” term. 10 For a fuller account of this process, see further Säfström (1994) and Kroksmark (1991). 11 It is here worth mentioning also the changed financing and distribution of resources to educational practices that occurs at the same time. In Swedish ECEC there are, for instance, between the years 1990–1994 budget cuts leading to (amongst other things) a 20% increase of number of children per teacher (Persson 2008). More recently, in 2020, a governmental investigation (Swedish Ministry of Education and Research (SOU) 2020:67) showed that even though all communal and private providers of ECEC services should adapt a socio-economic distribution of resources, depending upon children’s and the local context’s conditions, less than 50% of providers of early childhood services actually do so. 12 This tendency is not unique for Sweden. As Furlong and Whitty (2017) show, similar political changes have occurred in Germany, Latvia, China and USA. This is exemplified, for instance, by the many chairs in Pädagogik in Germany that now, and as an answer to decreasing knowledge results displayed by PISA programs, are replaced by chairs focusing empirical research, and in Latvia by the since the 1990s growing tradition of Disciplines of Educational Sciences/Sciences de l’Éducation that competes with the integrated knowledge tradition of Pedagògija (Furlong & Whitty 2017:29). 13 Also in this part of the overview, that specifically addresses the development of the knowledge tradition of Pedagogik/Pedagogy in the early years, the ambition is not more far-stretching than providing a general overview and to point towards certain important “tendencies and breaking points” in the scientific study of ECEC. The overview builds upon two main resources: (1) accounts of the history of ECEC by Simmons-Christensen (1977); Johansson (1994); Tellgren 2008; Hammarström Lewenhagen (2015); Tallberg Broman (1991, 1995, 2018); Fredricson (2020), and (2) research overviews in ECEC that have been performed at different points in modern time: Dahlberg & Åsén (1986); Lind (2001); Klerfeldt (2002); Persson (2008); Åsén & Vallberg Roth (2012); Tallberg Broman et al. (2015). 14 In the wonderful book and collective biography Att forma en ny tid (2020), authors Boel Englund, Agneta Linné (eds.), Ingrid Heyman, Kerstin Skog-Östlin and Eva Trotzig (two of which I am fortunate and honoured to have had as my pedagogues/teachers in different settings: Kerstin Skog Östlin and Agneta Linné) give examples of how women as Society-Pedagogues in important ways, despite such “positioning”, had a strong influence in many different aspects and domains of Swedish society, education included. 15 One of these “exceptions” was Professor in Psychology and Pedagogy John Elmgren at Gothenburg University; he was considered a “friend” of ECEC and engaged in the study of ECEC. He was also supervisor for the first two Swedish dissertations in ECEC, presented by Carin Ulin (1886–1971) in 1949 and Stina Sandels in 1956 (Tallberg Broman 2018, Simmons-Christensen 1977). 16 As recalled by Birgitta Hammarström Lewenhagen (2015), courses that joined “handicraft” and play were given at Nääs – these became internationally known, and Salomon was influential also outside Sweden, he was, for instance, invited by Dewey to the University of Chicago in 1904. 17 For more detailed accounts of this exciting history and the female pioneers, see Simmons-Christensen (1977), Johansson (1994), Tallberg Broman (1991), Tellgren (2008), Hammarström Lewenhagen (2016) and Fredricson (2020).

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18 The exact date is debated, and the founder Maria Kjellmark herself mentions three different dates, 1902, 1904 and 1907. In her later work she defines 1902 as the starting date for the Örebro Froebelseminar (see further Tellgren 2008:80). 19 This is expressed, for instance, in the title of the lecture that Köhler held at a conference about the upbringing (uppfostran) of young children in Stockholm 1937: The upbringing of young children – A psychological and pedagogical problem. 20 It is important to remind that this account concerns the way that these theoreticians were received and implemented in the Swedish context. 21 [En] livssyntesens psykologi, som lär oss att se människan och känna igen henne, sådan hon möter i livet och historien; problemet om hur livet formar den mänskliga individualiteten. 22 Att direkt mäta de andliga fenomenen är visserligen ej möjligt – en centimeter olust kan man ju inte tala om. 23 enormt överskattat 24 pedagogiska geniet 25 Den forskningsmetod som bör utvecklas inom den nya pedagogiken, och som Hammer kallar intuitiv, skall fokusera ett antal ögonblicksbilder ur det levande livet eller göra en serie tvärsnitt eller djuplodningar i verkligheten, sådana de faktiskt föreligger. 26 Lär av Pestalozzi, lär av Rousseau. Gör en lektion efter den ene, en efter den andre. Se över huvud i varje s.k. pedagogiskt system blott ett nytt begrepp jämte de andra. De behövs alla, men alla äro de blott momenter i en och samma metod, vars helhetsformel ännu icke är färdig. Rousseau står mera för den intuitiva bearbetningen, Pestalozzi mer för den diskursiva: två krav som äro varandra motsatta men ej motsägande; endast ytligheten kan ringaktas ettdera. 27 I have had the great privilege to together with colleges in pedagogy at several different universities experiment with, try out, and further develop the grammar proposed in the next chapter, both in educational practice (in the development of courses at bachelor, master and research levels) and in research. Here, we have found that it functions well not the least through spurring interesting and important discussions capable of rendering the foundational ontological, epistemological and methodological foundations of pedagogy more explicit and precise. Moreover, to approach an academic subject-discipline’s grammar from the point of view of philosophy of science may also be complemented by the sociology of science and in yet other Bernsteinian terms. Apart from the Bernsteinian concepts already used in this chapter, and as Horden (2017) shows, Bernstein uses the notion of grammar to identify the character of different academic disciplines. His notion of strong and weak “grammars” in different disciplines, is a somewhat “elastic” concept – a grammar normally considered “weak” may grow strong through, for instance, advanced theoretical development and a tight relation between this and practice. The attempt to give pedagogy her grammar in this book, then, also concerns conceiving her as both a singular and an integrated academic knowledge tradition, not the least in terms of a strong relationship between the external and internal, the empirical and the theoretical and the discursive and the intuitive. 28 For a full account of the history of the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, see further Cagliari et.al. (2016).

References Aitken, S. C. (2014) The ethnopoetics of space and transformation: Young people’s engagement, activism and aesthetics. Aldershot: Ashgate Press. Ansell Pearson, K. (2007) Introduction, in H. Bergson, Creative evolution. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Bergson, H. (1907/2007) Creative evolution. Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Bergson, H. (1934/2007) The creative mind: An introduction to metaphysics. New York: Dover publications. Biesta, G. (2011) Disciplines and theory in the academic study of education: A comparative analysis of the Anglo-American and Continental construction of the field, Culture & Society, 19 (2), 175–192. DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2011.582255. Cagliari, P., Castagnetti, M., Giudici, C., Rinaldi, C. and Moss, P. (2016) Loris Malaguzzi and the schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches 1945 – 1993. London: Routledge. Dahlberg, G. (2016) Series editor’s foreword, in P. Cagliari, M. Castagnetti, C. Giudici, C. Rinaldi and P. Moss Loris Malaguzzi and the schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches 1945–1993. London: Routledge. Dahlberg, G. and Åsén, G. (1986) Perspektiv på förskolan (Rapport 2:1986). Stockholm: Högskolan för lärarutbildning. Dahlberg, G. and Lenz Taguchi, H. (1994) Förskola och skola: om två skilda traditioner och visionen om en mötesplats. Stockholm: HLS Förlag. Dahllöf, U. (1967) Skoldifferentiering och undervisningsförlopp. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Dahllöf, U. (1971) Ability grouping, content validity and curriculum process analysis. New York: Teachers College Press. Deleuze, G. (2004a) Bergson, 1859–1941, in D. Lapoujade, Desert Islands and other texts. Los Angeles & New York: Semiotext(e). Deleuze, G. (2006) Bergsonism. New York: Zone Books. Edling, S. and Liljestrand, J. (2020) Let’s talk about teacher education! Analysing the media debates in 2016–2017 on teacher education using Sweden as a case, Asia Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 48 (3), 251–266. DOI: 10.1080/1359866X.2019.1631255 Englund, B., Linné, A., Heyman, I., Skog-Östlin, K. and Trotzig, E. (2020) Att forma en ny tid: Kvinnor som samhällspedagoger runt 1900 – en kollektivbiografi. Stockholm: Stockholmia förlag. Englund, T. (2017) Brytpunkter och tendenser i svensk pedagogisk forskning, i M. Nilsson Sjöberg Pedagogik som vetenskap: en inbjudan. Malmö: Gleerups. Fredricson, A. (2020) Barnträdgårdens didaktik: kontinuitet och förändring i talet om material och arbetssätt i tidskriften Barnträdgården 1918–1945. Avhandling. Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. Friesen, N. (2017) The pedagogical relation past and present: Experience, subjectivity and failure, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 49 (6), 743–756. DOI: 10.1080/ 00220272.2017.1320427. Friesen, N. and Osguthorpe, R. (2018) Tact and the pedagogical triangle: The authenticity of teachers in relation, Teaching and Teacher Education, 70, 255–264. DOI: 10.1016/ j.tate.2017.11.023. Furlong, J. and Whitty, G. (2017) Knowledge traditions in the study of education, in G. Whitty and J. Furlong Knowledge and the study of education: An international exploration. Series: Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Oxford: Symposium Books. Giamminuti, S. (2013) Dancing with Reggio Emilia: Metaphors for quality. New South Wales: Pademelon Press. Giamminuti, S., Merewether, J. and Blaise, M. (2021) Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research, Professional Development in Education, 47 (2–3), 436–448. DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2020.1862277 Hammarström Lewenhagen, B. (201) Förskolans århundrade: pedagogiska nyckeltexter om förskolans framväxt och idéarv. Malmö: Gleerups.

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Hammer, B. (1906) Intressemetoden. Bidrag till den första läsundervisningens pedagogik: om den första läsundervisningen. Manhem, Årg. 1. Hammer, B. (1908) Uppmärksamhetens problem inom den nyare psykologin. Psyke. Årg. 3. Hammer, B. (1909) Experimentell och intuitiv pedagogik. Uppsala. Hammer, B. (1910) Om pedagogiska problem och forskningsmetoder. Installationsföreläsning. https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf ?pid=alvin-record%3A103985&dswid= 5152 Hartman, S. (2012) Det pedagogiska kulturarvet. Stockholm: Natur och Kultur. Hordern, J. (2017) Bernstein’s sociology of knowledge and education(al) studies, in G. Whitty and J. Furlong, Knowledge and the study of education: An international exploration. Series: Oxford Studies in Comparative Education. Oxford: Symposium Books. Hoyuelos, A. (2013) The ethics in Loris Malaguzzi’s philosophy. Rejkjavík: Ísalda. Johansson, J.-E. (1994) Svensk förskolepedagogik under 1900-talet. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Kallòs, D. (1978) Den nya pedagogiken. En analys av den sk dialogpedagogiken som svenskt samhällsfenomen. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand. Kallòs, D. and Lundgren, U. P. (1975) Educational psychology: Its scope and limits, British Journal of Educational Psychology, 45 (2) 111–121. Kallòs, D. and Lundgren, U. P. (1979) Curriculum as a pedagogical problem. Lund: LiberLäromedel/CWK Gleerup. Klerfeldt, A. (2002) Var ligger forskningsfronten? – 67 avhandlingar I barnpedagogik under två decennier, 1980–1999 (Rapport 02:716). Stockholm: Skolverket. https://www.skolverket. se/download/18.6bfaca41169863e6a654698/1553957657052/pdf936.pdf Kristensson Uggla, B. (2019) En strävan efter sanning: Vetenskapens teori och praktik. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Kroksmark, T. (1991) Pedagogikens vägar till dess första svenska professur. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet. Larsson, H. (1899) Intuitionsproblemet. Särskilt med hänsyn till Henri Bergsons teori. Stockholm: Bonniers. Larsson, H. (1912) Intuitionsproblemet. Stockholm: Bonniers. Lind, U. (2001) Positioner i svensk barnpedagogisk forskning: en kunskapsöversikt (Rapport 01:612). Stockholm: Skolverket. Linné, A. (2015) Curriculum theory and didactics: Towards a theoretical rethinking, Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1, 31–39. DOI: 10.3402/nstep.v1.27002 Linné, A. (2018) Pedagogik, institution och kunskapsobjekt: Personliga noteringar och reflektioner, Pedagogisk Forskning i Sverige, 23 (5), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.15626/pfs23.5.04 Lundgren, U. P. (2015) When curriculum theory came to Sweden, Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 1, 5–13. DOI: 10.3402/nstep.v1.27000 Nahnfeldt, C. (2009) Emilia Fogelklou: tro och samhällssyn. Aktualisering av ett bidrag till samtalet om att vilja forma det egna livet och samhället, Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift, 85, Lund: Lunds universitet. Olsson, L. M., Dahlberg, G. and Theorell, E. (2015) Displacing identity – Placing aesthetics: Early childhood literacy in a globalized world, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37 (5), 717–738. DOI:10.1080/01596306.2015.1075711 Pechtelidis, I. and Kiuopkiolis, A. (2020) Education as commons, children as commoners: The case-study of the little tree community, Democracy & Education, 28 (1), 1–11. http://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol28/iss1/5 Persson, S. (2008) Forskning om villkor för yngre barns lärande i förskola förskoleklass och fritidshem (Rapport 2008:11). Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet. https://www.vr.se/analys/rapporter/ vara-rapporter/2008-09-01-forskning-om-villkor-for-yngre-barns-larande-iforskola-forskoleklass-och-fritidshem.html

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Pramling Samuelsson, I. (2015) Utvecklingen av barn- och förskolepedagogisk forskning inom utbildningsvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet. En personlig berättelse. Rapport. Göteborgs universitet: Institutionen för pedagogik, kommunikation och lärande. http://hdl. handle.net/2077/41346 Rinaldi, C. (2006) In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. London: Routledge. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of freedom. Cambridge: University Press. Simmons-Christensen, G. (1977) Förskolepedagogikens historia. Lund: Natur och Kultur. Säfström, C. A. (1994) Makt och mening: förutsättningar för en innehållsfokuserad pedagogisk forskning. Diss. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. Tallberg Broman, I. (1991) När arbetet var lönen. En kvinnohistorisk studie av barnträdgårdsledarinnan som folkuppfostrare. Diss. Malmö: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Tallberg Broman, I. (1995) Perspektiv på förskolans historia. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Tallberg Broman, I. (2018) Pedagogik med inriktning mot yngre barns utveckling och lärande, Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 23 (5), 223–243. https://doi.org/10.15626/ pfs23.5.13 Tallberg Broman, I., Vallberg-Roth, A.-C., Palla, L. and Persson (2015) Förskola tidig intervention (Delrapport SKOLFORSK). https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/ diva2:1406702/FULLTEXT01.pdf Taubman, P. M. (2009) Teaching by numbers: Deconstructing the discourse of standards and accountability in education. New York: Routledge. Tebet, G. and Abramowicz, A. (2018) Baby studies: Lines and perspectives of a field being constructed, ETD – Educação Temática Digital, 20 (4), 924–946. DOI: 10.20396/etd. v20i4.8649692 Tellgren, B. (2008) Från samhällsmoder till forskarbehörig lärare – kontinuitet och förändring i en lokal förskollärarutbildning. Diss., Örebro: Örebro University. https://www.diva-portal. org/smash/get/diva2:136476/FULLTEXT01.pdf Vecchi, V. (2010) Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Åsén, G. and Vallberg Roth, A.-C. (2012) Utvärdering i förskolan: en forskningsöversikt (Rapport 6:2012). Stockholm: Vetenskapsrådet.

4 THE SYNTAX AND GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS AND SENSE OF PEDAGOGY

cil XII 3832: D(iis) M(anibus) | Porciae Lade et | Optati ser(ui).| Epafr a conlibert(a) | Syntyche Anatole ser(uae) | paedagogis piissimis | u(iuae) p(osuerunt). Traduction proposée: Aux Dieux Mânes de Porcia Lada et d’Optatus, esclave. Epafra, compagne d’affranchissement, Syntychè et Anatolè, esclaves, ont dressé (cette sépulture) de leur vivant à leurs très pieux paedagogi. cil IX 6325: Beni[g] nae | Restitutae | paedago[g (ae)] | Faustus coniux. (Agusta-Boularot 2004:14)

The Words of Pedagogy: Paidagogikè Téchne, Ars Paedagogica, Paidagogos, Paedagogus, Paedagoga, Pais, Agogos, Paideia, Cultura, Educere, Evolvere, Sperimentare, Verificare, Ricerca, Organico, Olistico, Integrale, Ri-conoscere, Qualificare, Confronto, Nodo, Contaminazione, Articolare, Matrice The word “pedagogy” refers back to the Greek term Paidagogikè Téchne and the Latin term Ars Paedagogica that respectively means the knowledge and art of education. The word and terms are in turn derived from Paidagogos (Gr.) and Paedagogus (Lat.), a nomination that in ancient Greek and Roman societies was attributed to slaves who accompanied children to school, oversaw their leisure-time, and served as moral and social guides and protective guardians in all aspects of the child’s life. It was a widespread practice amongst both Greeks and Romans to leave one’s child in the care of a pedagogue and researchers date this custom back to as early as the Archaic period around 8–500 BC (Young 1987, 1990). When encountering some historic accounts of pedagogues, one wonders, despite and due to the aspects of time put forward in this book, if the pedagogue is destined to carry a bad rumour and whether this has travelled intact DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-7

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throughout history. In historic accounts, descriptions of pedagogues are, in fact, often less than flattering. The pedagogue is repeatedly illustrated (in both textual and visual representations) through the image of “a grumpy, sour, old and bibulous man” and “a lover of fault-findings” that severely restricts the young (Young 1987:152–153). However, there are also more positive accounts that display true affection and praise for caring and tender pedagogues. Not the least in terms of the close bonds and mutually respectful friendships that were developed between children and their pedagogues (Young 1987, 1990) and it has been pointed out that the large influence pedagogues had not only on children but in society in general during Antiquity should not be underestimated (Laes 2009). Even though this practice was predominantly concerning little boys and male slaves, it has been noted that also young girls were accompanied and taught by a female Paedagoga (Agusta-Boularot 2004; Rawson 2005; Young 1987). This, even though not always acknowledged in the grand history of events, is important for the present book as it takes place in ECEC where women are engaged to a larger extent than men. The quotation that introduces this chapter refers to inscriptions found in France and Italy respectively, paying homage to two female paedagogi: Porciae Lade and Benignae Restitutae. These are two of the few testimonies of women’s place in the Western history of education, which according to French Professor in Roman Archaeology and Art, Sandrine Agusta-Boularot (2004), is a problem that could be affronted by turning not only to literary accounts but also epigraphic and iconographic resources, as literary retelling of historical events often exclude women.1 One exception to this oblivion is the visual and literary representation of an important woman in the history of pedagogy and philosophy, Diotima of Mantinea (ca: 440 BC), illustrated in a beautiful painting by Slovenian artist Franc Kavčič/Frančišek Caucig (1755–1828) (Figure 4.1) and in literary accounts described as the teacher and pedagogue of Socrates (Irigaray 1989; Jaeger 1943; Neumann 1965).2 Diotima has an important role in the Symposium and the dialogue on love that occurred at this gathering of notable philosophers, accounted for by Plato (428–348 BC) in a text by the same name (Plato 385–370 BC/2003). However, as noted by Belgian-born French philosopher Luce Irigaray, Diotima, for one or another reason, is not herself present at the “conference” and feast: She is not there. She herself does not speak. Socrates reports or recounts her views. He borrows her wisdom and power, declares her his initiator, his pedagogue, on matters of love, but she is not invited to teach or to eat. Unless she did not want to accept an invitation? (Irigaray 1989:32) Whether Diotima chose to stay at home or wasn’t invited to the banquet and exchange between “great minds” is still a question, but what she has to say is of imminent and utmost importance not only for Socrates and for the history of

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FIGURE 4.1 

Diotima, the pedagogue of Socrates, with him and his disciple.

Photographer: Janko Dermastja © Narodna galerija, Ljubljana

philosophy and pedagogy in general, but also for the contemporary educational situation. By German Historian Werner Jaeger (1888–1961) Diotima’s teaching of Socrates and her, by Socrates cited, conceptualization of love in the Symposium is interpreted as “the impulse towards education and culture in the truest sense”, placed midway between “wisdom and ignorance”, between “the earthly and celestial realms” and being “the educational force that holds together the whole spiritual cosmos” ( Jaeger 1943:187–192). It is love, as the continuous striving for the good, the beautiful and for happiness, eudaimonia, that may incite someone “either from his own impulse or from the stimulus of others” to ascend towards “the recognition of the beauty of all science and knowledge” and, as Jaeger states, in the Symposium, Plato “finally calls this spiritual ascent, pedagogy” (Jaeger 1943:192–193, original emphasis). But not only did Diotima make such meaning of pedagogy the centre of attention in the Symposium, she also practiced pedagogy in the most interesting way, not the least in relation to our contemporary educational situation. Irigaray describes that Diotima in her argumentation and teaching of Socrates counters his own “dialogical” method and never falls completely into dialectic and dualistic reasoning, but rather insists upon the “intermediary”: At the very outset, she establishes the intermediary and never abandons it as a mere way or means. Her method is not, then, a propaedeutic of the destruction or destructuration of two terms in order to establish synthesis

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which is neither one nor the other (…) between knowledge and reality, there is an intermediary which permits the meeting and transmutation or transvaluation between the two (…) The mediator is never abolished in an infallible knowledge. Everything is always in movement, in becoming. (Irigaray 1989:33) Diotima’s way of putting forward argument in her teaching of Socrates, even though coming from afar, resonates with those put forward in this book concerning real, becoming and free educational experiences and events: there is a need to lessen the gap between reality and knowledge and for that to happen it may be necessary to question the knowledge we think we have of ourselves and the world and to consider both us and things as intermediary and interdependent existences in perpetual movement and becoming. Diotima puts love and joy at the centre of such intermediary transmutation and transvaluation of knowledge and reality; it is love and (a bit anachronistically put) a not all-too-serious attitude towards knowledge, or God for that matter, that may lead to both practical and metaphysical wisdom – something which she both teaches and practices: And the mediator of everything is, among other things, or exemplarily, love. Never completed, always evolving. And, in response to the protestation of Socrates that love is a great God, that everyone says so or thinks so, she laughs. Her retort is not at all angry, balancing between contradictories; it is laughter from elsewhere. Laughing, then, she asks Socrates who this everyone is. Just as she ceaselessly undoes the assurance or the closure of opposing terms, so she rejects every ensemble of unities reduced to a similitude in order to constitute a whole. (Irigaray 1989:33) Diotima joyfully laughs because Socrates in his dialectical and dialogical speech and reasoning not only relies on “what everyone says and thinks” about imagined entities and unities, but also because he “goes looking for his truths beyond the most obvious everyday reality, which he does not see or even perceive” (Irigaray 1989:38). Yet again there is a resonance with our contemporary times and the doubted and debated reality of everyday educational experiences and events where what is abstractedly and formalistically represented seems more real than reality itself. Accessing reality, however, is not, even in Diotima’s time, a question of certitude. Diotima, true to her role as Socrates’ pedagogue, continuously appeals to uncertainty and challenges Socrates' certainties: She ceaselessly questions Socrates on his positions but without, like a master, positing already constituted truths. Instead, she teaches the renunciation of already established truths. And each time that Socrates thinks that he can take something as certain, she undoes his certainty. (Irigaray 1989:33–34)

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Finally, what Diotima teaches not only Socrates, but potentially all of us today, is to speak in time-infused terms where both body and mind, matter and spirit, find themselves in a becoming, that nevertheless is perfectly real: She speaks - in a style that is loosely woven but never definitively knotted of becoming in time, of permanent generation and regeneration here and now in each (wo)man [chacun(e)] of what is more corporeally and spiritually real. (Irigaray 1989:39, original emphasis) Diotima, then, has here been allowed to set the tone for this syntax and grammar and semantics and sense of pedagogy, and as will be seen, her specific way of arguing and practicing pedagogy through the intermediary with love and joy in time-infused words, may serve as an inspiration for pedagogy and pedagogues still today. And there certainly are scholars that prolong such a tone and task today. For instance, Greek scholar Katerina Dalakoura (2016) performs an analysis of the scientific study in the history of education and pedagogy from feminist perspectives, revealing a rich influence in the discipline of these, and Swedish scholars Lovisa Bergdahl and Elisabet Langmann (2018) display therewithin masculinely marked accounts, words and figures, and perform critical and creative re-reading of these. Such efforts all contribute not only to enrichening the discipline of pedagogy but also to giving women a place in the history of education and pedagogy. In such efforts the importance and complexity of “grammaticality” is accentuated – they make visible that syntax and grammar never can be completely separated from sense and semantics and that these are not given once and for all, but open for new and different interpretations and actions. In the quote that introduced this chapter there is in the inscription referring to Porcia Lade a translation performed by Agusta-Bolarot that makes us understand that the inscription was made by Syntyché and Anatolè, also slaves, paying tribute to their “very pious and devoted pedagogues”. This exemplifies not only a more affectionate portrait of pedagogues but points towards the fact that also slaves were educated. This is yet another thing that is not always acknowledged in the grand history of events, but that also is open for more probing explorations and accounts, not the least with respect to the above-mentioned important influence that pedagogues had in society in general (Laes 2009). The role of pedagogues in Antiquity is further indicated by the etymological sense of the Greek terms pais which means child and agogos which implies to bring up, or, taken together, child-tender (Longenecker 1982) as well as by the Latin term educere which indicates to lead forth (Bass & Good 2004). In Figure 4.2, and the image of a school scene painted on an Athenian red-figure kylix (a ceramic drinking vessel) ca: 490–485 B.C. by the artist Douris, the pedagogue is seen in the upper right corner behind the child and the teacher who leads a lesson of recitation. On the left side of the picture is another child and teacher engaged in

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FIGURE 4.2 

Douris (490–485 B.C.) bpk/Antikensammlung

SMB/Photo: Johannes Laurentius

a lesson of lyre. The pedagogue seems to observe the lessons with great interest. One interpretation of the image is that it (due to the misspellings in the verse displayed on the scroll held by the teacher) rather illustrates students reporting their homework and being corrected by the teacher (Sider 2010). But the image can also tell something about the role of the pedagogue as the one who has a caring and supervising eye and ear, an attention not only to the whole life of the child but also to the complete educational situation: the pedagogue performs a meta-reflection on education and the life of a child. In that wider sense of the role of the pedagogue, it has also been noted that the pedagogue not only walked beside (and sometimes carried) the child to school but also at times behind (as in figure 4.2) and ahead of the child when engaging in instruction (Young 1990). To bring up, lead forth and tend to a child has, then, a much more complex and wider connotation and sense than what at first sight may be conceived. The Greek word paideia and the Latin word cultura are also of importance in relation to this wider sense of the role of the pedagogue. Paideia in its origins literally meant childrearing (Jaeger 1939/1945:286).3 However, the term developed, just as the term cultura, from indicating the very act and process of education into concerning also the content of education and the whole world offered by and through education: Originally the concept paideia had applied only to the process of education. Now its significance grew to include the objective side, the content of paideia – just as our word culture or the Latin cultura, having once meant

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the process then the content of education, came to mean the state of being educated; and then the content of education, and finally the whole intellectual and spiritual world revealed by education. ( Jaeger 1939/1945:303, original emphasis) This development from the process to the content and the state of being educated into the whole intellectual and spiritual world tells something about the wide-stretched task that education and pedagogy in Antiquity carried. Not only was the role and task of the pedagogue much wider than what often is imagined today, but so were also the purpose, aims and ends of education. When studying the long history of education and pedagogy they sometimes seem unbearably conservative to a contemporary mind. The “whole intellectual and spiritual world” often seems to be a given that the new generation needs to be introduced into and instrumentally trained within to, finally, represent and transfer in their turn to generations coming; education here sometimes seems to concern only dogmatic preservation of the past in the present and the future. However, this is a somewhat unnuanced interpretation, often due to our incapacity to consider contexts, texts and times other than our own ( Jaeger 1939/1945). In fact, even the earliest forms of education and pedagogy had to confront the fundamental problem and tension between the preservation and renewal of culture, knowledge and values in education and society: what to be preserved and given over to the new generation, and what to be changed and renewed by the new generation? Culture, knowledge and values, are, then, not static entities, they change and transform in accordance with the meaning and sense given to them in different times and at different places. And so do the purpose, aims and ends of education that change and transform in concert with these. Within a long-term and “long-time” perspective paideia and cultura, including the purpose, aims and ends of education, evolve through history in a way that resonates with Bergson’s account of the evolution of life in terms of “a ‘purposiveness without purpose’”(Sinclair 2020:214). A purposiveness always there and necessary, but one that dries out and dies as soon as it is given a fixed and final formula unfit for the present and the future of both culture, knowledge, values and the purpose, aims and ends of education. A purposiveness, therefore, that needs to be activated again and again. A more sophisticated idea of the purpose, aims and ends of education considers this and concerns the very process of searching for and making meaning in culture, knowledge and values as these continuously transform. In the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, it is precisely the quest and search for meaning and for a meaningful life by and for both adults and children, that stands in the centre of the pedagogical and educational endeavour (Cagliari et al. 2016; Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013). The purpose, aims and ends of education here concern engaging both adults and children in meaning-making adventures and search for a meaningful life. This also implies a different approach and attitude to very young children who are not always considered as fully part

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of society’s culture, knowledge and values, yet, here, the quest and search for meaning and a meaningful life is considered beginning when the child is born: This search for life and for the self is born with the child, and this is why we talk about a child who is competent and strong, engaged in this search toward life, toward others, toward the relations between the self and life. A child, therefore, who is no longer considered to be fragile, suffering, incapable; a child who asks us to look at her with different eyes in order to empower her right to learn and to know, to find the meaning of life and her own life, alone and with others. Ours is a different idea and attitude toward the young child, who we see as active and who, along with us searches every day to understand something, to draw out a meaning, to grasp a piece of life. (Rinaldi 2006:111–112)4 The history of pedagogy, Bergson’s invitation to a different metaphysics of the evolution of life, and the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia resonate together in words of importance to fathom the semantics and sense of education as adults’ and children’s search for meaning and a meaningful life. Some of these resonances become particularly evident in the introduction to the book Loris Malaguzzi and the Schools of Reggio Emilia: A selection of his writings and speeches, 1945–1993 where examples of the words and senses of pedagogy in the early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia are given: Rather than ‘develop’, with its connotations of linearity and predictability, people and projects ‘evolve’ [evolvere], responding unpredictably to contingencies, ‘a-rhythmic and discontinuous’ rather than ‘a uniform regular advance’. To ‘experiment’ [sperimentare] is a constant imperative, meaning to explore, to try or test things out. And this in turn requires ‘verification’, to ‘verify’ [verificare] meaning to test ideas or theories in the flow of everyday work, finding out through examination and experimentation if they hold up or not. This can be seen as part of an attitude of ‘research’ [ricerca], an enquiring mind that never takes anything for granted, that treats theories as points of reference but is constantly putting them to test, verifying them, seeing if they are useful and, if so, in what way. All these qualities are complemented by a readiness for ‘confrontation’ [confronto], a willingness and capacity to question the interpretations and perspectives of others, and to offer your own for similar challenge in frank but respectful exchange – without degenerating into hostility and antagonism. (Moss 2016:xxiii, original emphasis) Here, then, the words give sense to an educational project that seems very close to what Bergson has to say about evolution beyond mechanism and finalism

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as un-linear, unpredictable and as marked by the different rhythms of life and matter. Also, the invitation to experiment and verify in research that never takes anything for granted and that builds upon friendly confrontation resonates with Bergson’s metaphysics: it is, as seen in the first part of the present book, important to both discern and converge different “outposts” in both philosophy and science. But there are more common words in the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia and in Loris Malaguzzi’s speeches and writings; words that create a veritable resonance-chamber with Bergson’s concepts; words that connect with the organic, holistic and integrated features of duration, evolution, memory and recognition as well as with Bergson’s resistance to vain attempts of accounting for an individual by separate “states”; and words that resonate with his insistence upon the value of qualitative aspects of experience: A number of words are used by Malaguzzi to express his view that everything is inter-connected and inter-independent (…). There is, for example, a cluster of associated words – ‘organic’ [organico], ‘holistic’ [olistico], ‘integral’ [integrale] – used to affirm that the child cannot (or, at least, should not) be divided into pieces in pedagogical or other work (…) Two other words are very central to understanding Malaguzzi and the municipal schools. To ‘re-cognise’ [ri-conoscere] is fundamental to every process, ‘re-cognition’ being about returning to a previous experience, often with others to reflect, re-think and re-know its meaning (…) Finally, to ‘qualify’ [qualificare] is not about adding a reservation or caveat, but rather refers to giving greater or different value to something. (Moss 2016:xxiv) Finally, in this echo chamber, there are words in this pedagogy that resonate with the deep relationality between human beings and world that Bergson, not the least in his later works, puts forward. These words, common to both Bergson’s metaphysics and this pedagogy, pertain to the singularity and integration of living human beings and non-human matter as they develop in complex and contextual settings: Other words also refer to various forms of connectedness or interaction, including ‘node’ [nodo], a point in a network at which lines or pathways intersect or branch out; ‘contamination’ [contaminazione] or ‘contagion’ [contagio], to suggest being influenced or touched by someone or something else – but used in a positive sense; and ‘articulate(d)’, [articolare], where pieces connect up in a complexity. ‘Ecological’ and ‘matrix’ [matrice] refer to the cultural, social and/or political environment in which something develops and emphasise the importance of ‘context’, a word that itself appears many times. (Moss 2016: xxiv)

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As accounted for in the preceding part of this book, the past is of the highest importance for our present and our future, and the origins of words such as the ones described above may come to use also in the present educational situation. Not, however, in any deterministic way and the most important thing when returning to historical resources such as the ones accounted for above seems to be to treat the past as a creative resource for the present and the future being acted and thought differently and dynamically. This is something that also Loris Malaguzzi, already in the early formation of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, pointed out when he spoke of the importance of a pedagogy that answers to the challenges and potentials of its’ contemporary times: An answer is only possible if our conception of pedagogy is dynamic, not mummified. Either pedagogy – like all the human sciences – is remade, reconstructed and updated based on the new conditions of the times, or it loses its nature, its function, its proper capacity to correspond to the times it lives in, and above all to foresee, anticipate and prepare the days of tomorrow (…) What is children’s pedagogy if not the daughter of society’s way of being and constructing itself? (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:143) Indeed, pedagogy if not “mummified” may rightfully be considered the daughter of society’s way of being and constructing itself and below her grammatical components are further explored in that very sense.

The Domains of Pedagogy: Practice, Science and Knowledge tradition As seen in Figure 4.3, and already in the introduction to the present book, a first distinction to be made when speaking of pedagogy is to discern three domains within which pedagogy is activated as (1) practice, (2) science and (3) knowledge tradition. It is of importance to make this distinction not only to ward of all misconception that surrounds pedagogy today (where anyone, even without formal training in pedagogy, seems capable of speaking about it with certitude), but more importantly, to give back some practical and intellectual consistency to real, becoming and free educational experiences and events. In fact, what is often forgotten with pedagogy is that she is more than a practice. Very often today, and not only within the introduction mentioned AngloAmerican tradition, pedagogy is equated with “educational practice”. This is not a new problem and perhaps it has its origins in the particularly complex aspect of educational realities. For instance, and as stated by the first Swedish Professor in Pedagogy, Bertil Hammer, the question of upbringing seems to be such an overwhelmingly practical problem that one tends to forget that it is also a theoretical one (Hammer 1910).

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PEDAGOGY WORDS: Paidagogikè téchne, Ars paedagogica, Paidagogos, Paedagogus, Paedagoga, Pais, Agogos, Paideia, Cultura, Educere, Evolvere, Sperimentare, Verificare, Ricerca, Organico, Olistico, Integrale, Ri-conoscere, Qualificare, Confronto, Nodo, Contaminazione, Articolare, Matrice. DOMAINS: Practice, Science, Knowledge tradition PHENOMENA: Upbringing, Teaching, Education DIMENSIONS: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics LOGIC: Contextuality, Complexity, Relationality METHODOLOGY: Analytic, Synthetic, Intuitive KNOWLEDGE-OBJECT: The generational search for meaning and a meaning ful life in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values as this occurs in upbringing, teaching and education within and outside formalised educational institutions. Or gentleness. FIGURE 4.3 

The grammar of pedagogy.

With respect to this theoretical character of pedagogical practice as well as to the meta-reflective character of the pedagogue indicated above, pedagogy must also be considered as a long knowledge tradition and as a scientific discipline that has accumulated theoretical knowledge on pedagogy as practice over a very long period of time. Now, that these three domains within which pedagogy is activated sometimes need to be discerned does not mean that they should be treated as separate entities. Especially since another fundamental feature of pedagogy is that she is activated right on the border of ideas and action. Let’s recall the quotation from pedagogue Jean Houssaye presented in the introduction, where he states that pedagogues “engage in an educational reality, between ideas and actions, within the articulation of both, without any possible reduction of one to the other” (Houssaye 2002:18). Theories from the science and knowledge tradition of pedagogy can therefore not be entirely separated from the practice of pedagogy, and as seen above pedagogical problems are of both practical and theoretical character. These domains, then, even though we sometimes need to discern them, must at the same time constantly and consistently be kept together to account in a more full and complete way for the complexity of educational experiences and events. In this sense, pedagogy is very close to Bergson’s more “radically empirical science”. It is a “true empiricism” in a much more refined sense than being just about the empirical study of educational practices: pedagogy joins the theoretical

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and the empirical, the external and the internal, the discursive and the intuitive. In short, pedagogy here resonates with Bergson’s way of joining metaphysics with science in intuition. As his account of the evolution of life and matter shows, there are two ways of (knowing) the real: the spatialized, solid and intelligent way and the instinctive, sympathetic and engaged way – both these ways come together in intuition and that may give us access to a more complete reality. Importantly, though, this does not mean that the first way would be attributed to the domain of practice and the second to science and to the knowledge tradition of pedagogy. Quite contrary, the practice, science and knowledge tradition of pedagogy all need to navigate both ways of (knowing) reality – it is on the border of act and thought that intuition as well as pedagogues in practice, science and the historical knowledge tradition work. This is something that resonates with the pedagogy in Reggio Emilia where practice and theory have the most intimate relationship and are seen as deeply connected to the search for meaning in life. Italian scholar Carlina Rinaldi expresses this as follows: Theory and practice should be in dialogue, two languages expressing our effort to understand the meaning of life. When you think it’s practice; and when you practice it’s theory. ‘Practitioner’ is not a wrong definition of the teacher. But it’s wrong that they are not also seen as theorists. (Rinaldi 2006: 190–191) This is also of importance in the education of student-teachers. Not only is it necessary that student-teachers are given the opportunity to “encounter their own image of the child” (Rinaldi 2006:194)5 as this, as seen above, constitutes the very beginning of education and of a pedagogical understanding of education. But it is also precisely in the encounter of practice and theory that student-teachers and teachers have their place: What is absolutely important is to support them to discover the connection between theory and practice, and to give them the feeling, the emotional feeling, that their place – their metaphorical place – is the connection, the meeting place between theory and practice. I think here there is the meaning of teaching. (Rinaldi 2006:194) There are contemporary scholars in ECEC that apply such an approach in higher education. At the University College of Östfold in Halden, Norway, a group of female scholars led by Norwegian Professor in Pedagogy/Pedagogikk Ninni Sandvik, have developed a methodology where events from the everyday practice with the very youngest children aged one to three years are allowed to encounter complex process-philosophical perspectives in the formation of student teachers and master students (Sandvik 2013, 2016; Larsen, Johannesen,

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Ulla & Sandvik 2022). Here, then, the very meaning of teaching as taking place in the encounter between practice and theory is not just talked about, but further enhanced by creative methods that allow for student teachers and master students in Pedagogy and ECEC to have that “emotional feeling” of one’s place being right on the border of act and thought.

The Phenomena of Pedagogy: Upbringing, Teaching and Education That the meaning of teaching lies in the encounter between theory and practice is true also of upbringing and for education altogether. Upbringing, teaching and education are the classical phenomena in pedagogy and they all pertain as much to practice as to theory. In the Swedish language, these all begin with the letter U: uppfostran (upbringing), undervisning (teaching) and utbildning (education), and they are referred to as the “three U’s” that constitute the core-phenomena that pedagogy concerns itself with in practice, science and within its knowledge tradition. Even though it may seem natural that upbringing belongs to the family rather than to formal educational institutions, in the sense given to the pedagogue above as well as to education and children and adults as cultural meaning-seekers and meaning-makers, upbringing may be seen as an integral part of teaching and of education in general. It is, as earlier said, the concept of upbringing that the first Swedish Professor in Pedagogy, Bertil Hammer chooses as the object of knowledge for pedagogy, but upbringing is here considered in a wide sense and include philosophical, individual and social-historical issues and perspectives (Hammer 1910; Linné 2015:71). This is also the case with theories that within a Continental tradition of pedagogy evoke the classical and multifaceted concept of “Erziehung” – a more all-encompassing notion of upbringing that concern the purpose, aim and process of children becoming part of societal life (Biesta 2011). At the same time as upbringing is part of teaching and education, to become part of societal life includes to be taught and educated also in social contexts outside formalized educational institutions. The three pedagogical phenomena, then, concern the whole life of children and occur both within and outside formalized educational settings (Svensson 2009). There are, of course, many ways of conceptualizing and practising each of the pedagogical phenomena upbringing, teaching and education, but when bringing them together within a wider conception of education and pedagogy and in a notion such as the one of “Erziehung”, they do have one thing in common. They are all grounded in, coloured by and fall back on the very purpose, aims and ends of education as well as on the position given to the child. Depending upon how these are viewed and defined, upbringing, teaching and education will take on different contents and forms. If culture, knowledge, values and the purpose, aims and ends of education are seen in quantitative terms and as static and unchangeable; and if the position of the child is that of a “tabula rasa” upon

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which such heritage is to be written, then upbringing, teaching and education will most likely be about instruction and transmission. If, on the other hand, culture, knowledge, values and the purpose, aims and ends of education are seen as qualitative phenomena concerning the search for meaning; and if the child is seen as a searcher for meaning already when being born, then, upbringing, teaching and education is rather likely to be a creative and collective task that puts change and transformation of all and everything involved at the centre. This latter conceptualization and practice of upbringing, teaching and education resonates with Bergson’s account of evolution. Evolution here occurs through creative, qualitative and unpredictable movements in both the “external world” and our “inner lives”. There are, of course, just as in Bergson’s account of the liberty with which life and consciousness evolve, a variation of possible degrees to which upbringing, teaching and education take place in accordance with one or the other order – sometimes rather to the side of instruction and transmission, sometimes rather to the side of collective creation. This needs to be acknowledged and, of course, instruction and transmission are of utmost importance, sometimes this can even be a question of protecting children from being harmed. Upbringing contains an element of important and life-sustaining socialization, teaching sometimes needs to be performed, and may even be desired by children, as transmission and education does have an important task in preserving cultures, knowledge and values that the old generation value as essential for the present and the future. It is important to not forget that all pedagogical phenomena also entail the responsibility of the older generation to take care of, protect and guide the child (Lilja & Dahlbeck 2019). As said, it is a question of walking beside, but at times also before and behind the child. Yet, and as shown in the first part of this book, transmission and instruction seem to be so overwhelmingly accentuated in the contemporary educational situation that an enhancement also of “the other side of the story” should be addressed. In line with how life creatively and unpredictably evolves the qualitative and creative transformation of both culture, knowledge and values and human beings in education could be given much more attention. Such evolution was also in Chapter 2 seen to lead to a different conception of childhood as no longer being a clear-cut “state” sharply distinguished from other “states” such as youth and adulthood. Rather, both childhood and adulthood were here conceived as transitions throughout life. Upbringing, teaching and education could today gain from being conceived and practiced through the qualitative specificity of the transitional, transformative and changing character of both culture, values, knowledge and childhood. The three central pedagogical phenomena could to a larger degree be activated as a creative and collective task where children and adults engage not only in the study of existing cultures, knowledge and values but also in changing and creatively transforming these. In the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia the qualitative character of change, transformation and transition stand out as utterly central to the pedagogical phenomena. In resonance with Bergson’s conception

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of the evolution of life and childhood as concerning unpredictable and qualitative transitions, Malaguzzi stated that “Radically distinct stages do not exist in children’s evolution, neither is there a uniform, regular process, as if we were simply dealing with quantitative growth” (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:74). Rather, change, transformation and transition are here formulated in tandem with Bergson’s account of evolution as biological and vital facts; change is here seen as both a right and a value in education and something which also children are affected by, engage and search for meaning in: I would suggest as important the sort of change which defines man, the kind of change that generates and is generated by discontinuity as a generative factor; a biological fact and a cultural value that is inescapable; change as transition from one ‘state’, that of being, to another, that of being able to be; the change which we effect and are affected by; the change that affects the child and which the child does not want to and cannot relinquish. Though change may not be easy and can sometimes be painful, it is vital. Vital in relation to life, because life is change, and the first years of life are a period of great transformation. We talk about the right to change: change is both a right and a value. It is a quality of life and of living which requires awareness to give oneself direction. What is necessary is to give meaning to change and accompany change. Children ask that of us too; that we accompany their changes and their search for new identities, their search for the meaning of growth and for identity within change, their search for the meaning of change. (Rinaldi 2006:104–105) Children too, then, explore the meaning of change – this is often what interests them more than meaning of a ready-made kind. Children not only explore a given world: they interact with and transform different phenomena in the world. In line with Bergson’s problem-posing mode, they seem to enjoy more than anything the very process of making meaning through formulating questions and constructing problems (Olsson 2009, 2013, 2020). Even though there may seem to be a large gulf between the metaphysical propositions of an established 19th century’s philosopher and young children of today, there are still flagrant resonances between Bergson’s and children’s preferred problem-posing mode. This is something that could be further enhanced in education. As seen in Chapter 2, if accepting the hypothesis that the evolution of life is a profoundly creative response to the problem of how to live in a material world, this could invite to more experimental processes where children, pupils, students and teachers may engage in the formulation of questions and the construction of problems that they find important and interesting. In accordance with Bergson’s durational time, the taken-for-granted formula of problems being given with equally given solutions must here be rethought. The problem is fully stated only once it is resolved and solutions are an effect of the problem-posing process. Importantly, as shown by Deleuze (2004b), in that process a problem is constructed and solutions are

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brought forward in intimate relation, and even proportion, to the meaning and sense one departs from. This “reversed formula” could invite us to consider children’s solutions not from the point of view of being correct or incorrect, but rather from how they stand in proportion to the meaning and sense children depart from when constructing the problem (Olsson 2009, 2013, 2020). This formula may give teaching the sense of being about creating time and space for children to construct problems and learning being about the meaning-making process that lies at the bottom of such construction of problems. But not only learning and teaching processes can benefit from a problem-posing mode. The pedagogical endeavour and all three pedagogical phenomena – upbringing, teaching and education – could, rather than being considered given problems with given solutions, be treated within such continuous problem-construction and meaning-making. Within such creative problem-posing and meaning-making modes there is the need to widen pedagogical phenomena to include also play. Play and playfulness are perhaps the most fundamental modes of creativity, coming before culture and being something shared by all living beings: “Play is older than culture, for culture, however inadequately defined, always presupposes human society, and animals have not waited for man to teach them their playing” (Huizinga 1949/2002:1). The etymological sense of play in many languages denotes “lively” and “rhythmical” movement (Huizinga 1949/2002), something which is of the essence for any collective, creative, meaning-making and problem-posing process. Play has a long and rich history in ECEC, and just as with the phenomena of upbringing, teaching and education, there are many ways of conceptualizing and practising play in ECEC. But here too there is one thing that practices and theories on play have in common: it concerns a certain “atmosphere” where children’s “autonomy” is of importance, although adults have their place as well in this “adventure” common to all living beings (Hoyuelos 2013; Huizinga 1949/2002). Contemporary scholars in early childhood Monica Nilsson, Robert Lecusay, Karin Alnervik and Beth Ferholt, here give wonderful examples of how children and adults together engage in “play-worlds” where children together with adults create new and unexpected environments and events, further enhanced by different forms of creative sources coming from the arts, the sciences and children’s own cultural processes and artefacts (Ferholt & Nilsson 2017; Nilsson, Lecusay, Alnervik & Ferholt 2018). The phenomena of pedagogy, then, engage so much more than just instruction and transmission of given cultures, knowledge and values. Children and adults may engage in playful and creative meaning-making and problem-posing processes where the whole atmosphere, children’s autonomy and not the least, the common adventure of studying and changing cultures, knowledge and values are at the centre. There may be, then, not only three U’s to designate the phenomena of pedagogy, but also three A’s of relevance for upbringing, teaching and education: “Atmosphere, Autonomy, and Adventure” (Hoyuelos 2013:65). These A’s also have the most intimate relation with the dimensions of pedagogy: its’ aesthetics, ethics and politics and it is to these that we now turn.

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The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Aesthetics Already in the introduction to this book an aesthetic dimension in pedagogy was defined as concerning the relation between Logos and World. Throughout the first part of the present book, this has come to be specified also in terms of the relation between matter (including our own body and brain) and mind. There are ample resources in the history of pedagogy that actualize such a definition of aesthetics. But perhaps it is American Pedagogue and Philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952) that has brought forward a definition closest to how it is treated in the present book. In Art as Experience (1934), Dewey puts forward the argument that all practical activity that carries a processual logic of fulfilment and consummation rather than cessation, and that is coloured by an amalgamated relation between intellectual, affective and emotional qualities, is an aesthetic experience. In the history of ECEC, there are ample examples of such a definition of an aesthetic problem and dimension of education and pedagogy. Some of the earliest aesthetic insights and expressions come from Pestalozzi and Froebel who, as shown in Chapter 3 of the present book, had such a tremendous influence on Swedish Kindergartens. Pestalozzi, in fact, put forward strong arguments for “holding together” hand, heart and head in education (Tallberg Broman 1995), something which also inspired Froebel who spent two years with Pestalozzi in Switzerland at the beginning of the 19th century ( Johansson 1994). The holding together of hand, heart and head and the relation of Logos and World is particularly visible in Froebel’s “gifts and occupations” to children (Figure 4.4): a set of 10 gifts and 10 occupations that invite the child to corporeal play (for instance with balls, building blocks and pattern activity blocks), but also to a wide intellectual world (Bruce 2021; Provenzo 2009). In fact, the gifts were closely connected to Froebel’s idea of nature and the relations between the living and the inert: The gifts literally functioned as tools with which to awaken and develop a child’s recognition of the common, God-given elements found in nature. Froebel’s philosophy embraced a Christian pantheism, one that assumed that all things in nature (animal, vegetable, and mineral) are connected. Thus Froebel was concerned with showing the interrelationships between living and inanimate things. His gifts helped him do so by instilling in children an appreciation of natural forms and harmonies. Such an accomplishment remains clearly consistent with his more general understanding of the purpose of education, the nature of which he believed to be directed by “an eternal law and unity. (Provenzo 2009:87) Despite the strong focus on the God-given and the eternal, there are still some creative elements to the gifts and to Froebel’s philosophy and pedagogy. According to Provenzo (2009), it is quite possible to consider the gifts apart

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Froebel’s building blocks. A practical guide to the English kindergarten (children’s garden): for the use of mothers, nursery governesses and infant teachers: being an exposition of Froebel’s system of infant training: accompanied by a great variety of instructive and amusing games, and industrial and gymnastic exercises, also numerous songs, set to music and arranged to the exercises (1858) by Johannes Ronge, London: Hobson. Wikimedia Commons. FIGURE 4.4 

from Froebel’s religious context and use them, even in contemporary times, “to ground children in the real world through personal experience and hands-on learning” (Provenzo 2009:94). Provenzo even claims that the gifts presented a “radical innovation in the history of play” and that children were asked “not to imitate the world around them, but to use the blocks as elements in creating their own structures” (ibid:91). He also recalls that many important artists were

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Composition With Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue, Piet Mondrian, 1920, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. Wikimedia Commons.

FIGURE 4.5 

aesthetically educated and deeply influenced by Froebel’s gifts (Figures 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7): In the case of Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian, for example, it seems likely that their paintings were influenced by design principles that were almost certainly introduced to them in their early educational experiences. This is clearly so in the well-documented and widely cited experience of Frank Lloyd Wright with Froebel’s kindergarten materials. (Provenzo 2009:94) The “education of the hand” that Bergson called for, then, really does have a presence in the history of ECEC. Throughout its history, it has been a pedagogy that truly “honours the creative powers of the body”. But more profoundly, this also concerned, already at this early stage, a certain convergence between body/ matter and mind/spirit and between Logos and World, something which still is very much present in ECEC. A contemporary example comes from Swedish artist and researcher in ECEC Ebba Theorell’s dissertation (Theorell 2021) in which a young boy’s war-play is carefully observed and analyzed with an aesthetic gaze and from the point of view of dance theory and process-philosophical perspectives. Young boy’s

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Falling Water House Frank Lloyd Wright, 1939, Falling Water (Kaufmann Residence). Wikimedia Commons. FIGURE 4.6 

Untitled, Paul Klee, 1914, The Berggruen Klee Collection 1984. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wikimedia Commons. FIGURE 4.7 

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war-play, where they use various figures and stories from contemporary popular culture, is here shown to consist of profound choreographic and meaning-making processes.6 These aspects are revealed in categories that Theorell gathers in a developed theoretical perspective that she names kinesthetic musicality: Rhythm: as an important awareness to create patterns, collectivity and sensibility in war play. Orchestrating space: the children are highly sensitive towards details, sounds, forms, energy and different materials of the spatial context where the play takes place. I interpret this sensitivity as a kind of musicality. Fictional characters as spaces for exploring movement quality: choosing a character in play is also choosing movement patterns. The children pay very much attention to the specific movement qualities of each character. The movement canon of war play: a list of recurrent movements in war play, such as the piruette, fencing, robots, playing dead and “The force”. Phrases: the children’s movement improvisations in solo phrases. Aesthetic attention: the children pay an aesthetic, poetic attention to words, musical elements, sounds, space and movement that is produced in war play. (Theorell 2021:160–161) The aesthetic understanding of young boy’s war-play that Theorell develops is expressively connected not only to music but also to the profound meaning of aesthetics as a certain convergence between body/matter and mind/spirit and between Logos and World: Kinesthesia and musicality describe a bodily thinking and a sensual sensitivity that is orchestrated, composed and regulated with the help of what I perceive as a bodily, musical sensitivity towards the world. (Theorell 2021:161) A prolongation, then, not only of the deep aesthetic heritage in ECEC, but also of Bergson’s insistence upon music as a paradigmatic example to illustrate experiences where mind/spirit and body/matter are at one in duration. A prolongation too of Bergson’s invitation to within duration consider both mind and matter as movements with different rhythms, inciting education to further “increase the tension between the duration of consciousness and things, that Bergson finds vital” (Zanfi 2020:33). A prolongation, finally, of theories on children’s meaning-making where children’s search for meaning and construction of problems are considered carrying a profoundly aesthetic character and as involving both body and mind in tension and rhythm with the world’s rhythms. There is nothing mysterious with such explanations of children’s meaning-­ making. It suffices to observe the way children explore the world to clearly see that this is going on. This is something that is also repeatedly confirmed by the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia. Atelierista7 in the early childhood centres Vea Vecchi states that even though aesthetics may be something difficult

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FIGURE 4.8 

Child’s hand and tree.

to define, it may be said to concern a “process of empathy relating the Self to things and things to each other” (Vecchi 2010:5) and that this is clearly seen in the “quality of relations children readily have with things around them and what they are doing” (Vecchi 2010:31) (Figures 4.8, 4.9, 4.10 and 4.11). Further, and according to Vecchi, the aesthetical dimension is “an attitude of care and attention for the things we do, a desire for meaning; it is curiosity and wonder; it is the opposite of indifference and carelessness, of conformity, of absence of participation and feeling” (Vecchi 2010:5) and moreover, pure rationality “without feeling and empathy, like imagination without cognition and rationality, build up partial, incomplete human knowledge” (ibid:6). In a striking way, then, this resonates with what Bergson has to say about the two ways of (knowing) the real through spatialized, solid, intelligent conceptualizations and instinctive, sympathetic and direct engagement with matter.8 But also the way the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia describe how meaning-making takes place in an aesthetical dimension resonates with Bergson’s philosophy. The vital

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FIGURE 4.9 

Child’s finger in shell.

impulse here finds its aesthetical companion in pedagogical work with children that follows the “pulse of life” as the “‘beat of life’ is what often solicits intuitions and connections between disparate elements to generate new creative processers” (Vecchi 2010:7–8). It is in relation to this that the famous expression “a hundred languages” in Reggio Emilia could be understood – it concerns a pedagogy that does not

FIGURE 4.10 

Child’s hand and stones.

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FIGURE 4.11 

Child’s hand and pieces of glass.

Photos: Ebba Theorell.

separate the human mind and body from each other or the world’s pulsing rhythm and that opens up for a multitude of expressions and ways of communicating and representing knowledge in meaning-making processes: When we speak of languages we refer to the different ways children (human beings) represent, communicate and express their thinking in different media and symbolic systems; languages, therefore, are the many fonts or geneses of knowledge. (Giudici as cited in Vecchi 2010:9) The hundred languages, then, do not primarily concern “a series of discipline-based points of view for a topic” (Vecchi 2010:18). It is a much more profound relationship that is at stake as also each “language” carries both an expressive-­ affective side and a rational-cognitive side (ibid). Aesthetics is here rather seen as a “trans-disciplinary fertilizer, full of vitality capable of welcoming different ways of thinking, not afraid of ‘interference’ and ‘contamination’ but considering them to be a possibility and not ‘off the subject’” (ibid, original emphasis). Through working with a rich variety of “languages”, then, these early childhood centres have managed to engage in and make visible children’s and adult’s meaning-­ making processes where they enter “an intense relationship with the reality being investigated” (ibid:32). An example of how this may concretely be arranged for by teachers is given by Vecchi. She states that a first and important phase is to create a context where

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children can “explore things in a personal way, through using all senses and in a context of interpersonal relationships that can be defined as ‘the right acquaintances’”(ibid). This is the first pre-requisite for such intense relations with reality to occur, but there is also a second possible phase: A second phase might be to look for different materials together with children, letting them make the choices. Materials can be of different size, colour, substance, with different qualities of touch and sound, but they should be capable of triggering memories of personal experience. Our minds are capable of connecting very different planes and levels; a sense can call to mind a memory and narrate a reality by recollecting it. Encounters between children and materials are generally extremely rich in suggestive qualities, memories and meanings, without much intervention on the part of the teacher. By delving into materials children remember, choose, interpret and easily attach certain materials to a real sensory experience. Looking for materials to represent a certain reality can take on a theatrical nature and as children recollect their experience they often tend to use the tone of voice and mime the body language they consider most suggestive and suited to narrating the experience they are intent on remembering. Representations of experience can be encapsulated in a sort of physical performance with child and material in dialogue together and to which children happily abandon themselves. This theatrical situation is sometimes accompanied by projecting images of the explored reality onto walls, floor or ceiling in the space where children are exploring materials. (Vecchi 2010:32–33) To engage children in such processes, then, concerns engaging both their sensory perceptions and bodily relations with the material world, but also their memories. The teacher’s role in these processes is to make sure that the children do not lose the memory of their lived experience and the affections they have had while creating the product (ibid:33). In this way the teacher may also ensure and give support to a process where “as they [children] give shape to materials (visual, acoustical or other) these traces of past perception and emotion are incorporated” (ibid). This, then, is certainly an example of yet another veritable resonance-chamber between this pedagogy and Bergson’s philosophy.9 Sensory perception and engagement with materials are described as provoking personal memories of lived experiences making it possible to tell something of reality through the creation of representations of a “theatre-like” character. The mind is described as capable of many planes and levels in such a process. This is precisely how Bergson describes the function and relation of perception and memory, not the least in the figure of the cone with its different levels and degrees of memory (Bergson 1896/1991:162). In this pedagogy and in the concrete everyday aesthetic explorative and experimentative work with children, this seems to be what is at stake;

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the powers of the body, affects and personal memory-images from the uniquely coloured past of each child are enhanced, thereby creating a more profound relation to that which is studied. As children also are encouraged to work collectively in these processes, they have rich opportunities to engage with each other’s processes and products: “Children can easily see analogous elements in the products of their classmates, which reinforces the memory of something experienced individually and collectively” (Vecchi 2010:33). This also gives the impression of this process not being so much of a “personal diary style”, but something much more profound and much more collective than that. As Swedish Professor in Pedagogy Gunilla Dahlberg (2016a) reminds us in her reference to French psycho-therapist Félix Guattari’s (1930–1992) pertinent question of “how to make a class operate like a work of art”, such processes may also be conceived as carrying an aesthetic character. The teacher’s work may in processes like the one presented above be conceived as an aesthetic endeavour and as making it possible for unpredictable processes to occur amongst everyone and everything involved (Dahlberg 2016a:129). Aesthetics in the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia also concerns the beautiful. It is considered that human beings strive for the beautiful and it is pointed out that the pedagogical environment and the pedagogical offers given to children must be beautiful. Beauty is, however, also questioned as throughout history the notion of aesthetics and the beautiful has not necessarily belonged only to the “good” and the “true” but has also existed even within the most fascist of regimes (Vecchi 2010:10). The beautiful in the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia is, however, important and conceived in line with the definition of aesthetics given by Vecchi above, as a search for “a way of thinking which requires care, grace, attention, subtlety and humour, a mental approach going beyond the simple appearance of things to bring out unexpected aspects and qualities” (ibid). This continuous search is visible not the least in the architecture and pedagogical environment of the early childhood centres that results from many years of cooperation between architects and pedagogues (Ceppi & Zini 1998). But it is also seen in the processes of meaning-making and in the pedagogical offers given to children. In fact, and as will be seen in Part III of the present book, one important aspect of pedagogy, especially with very young children who often use extra-linguistic means of expression and communication, is that upbringing, teaching and education take place through the design of spaces and materials. The space and the materials available in the pedagogical environment are part of teachers’ “tool-box” and it is with and through these teachers can communicate different pedagogical invitations to explore various subject-matters with children. Even though space in Bergson’s work certainly seems to be the “bad cop”, responsible for all that is hindering time as positivity, as movement and as creation, it is still so that in his later works space too become marked by movement and change. As stated in Chapter 2 of the present book, if matter in some sense acts and “has its own life” (even though to a minimal degree) and if space

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is an effect of such acts marked by continuous movement and transformation, then both matter and space needs to be taken care of in education. Paired with an honouring of both the body and the mind’s powers, then, this could incite education to really pay attention to the educational spaces, environments and materials that we offer to children (Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015). This is certainly something that the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia seem to pay great attention to, and the arrangement and design of the educational space and materials are seen as a creative act, closely related to cultural, social, political and epistemological development in general: Designing the space of a nido or scuola dell’infanzia – or perhaps we could just say designing a school – is a highly creative event not only in terms of pedagogy and architecture but more generally in social, cultural and political terms. This institution, in fact, can play a very special role in cultural development and real socio-political experimentation, to the extent that this moment (designing) and this place (the school) can be experienced not as a time and space for reproducing and transmitting established knowledge but as a place of true creativity. (Rinaldi 2006:79) In this sense aesthetics in ECEC is truly about creating an atmosphere – an atmosphere that materializes the pedagogy, its’ purpose, aims, ends, including the attitude towards the child, and also its practice and theory in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values. In the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, and within the collective and creative meaning-making that occurs there, the pedagogy is expressed in the design and organization of spaces and materials that create an atmosphere that further support its foundational ideas. In tune with Bergson, space is here considered not as a simple “receptable”, but as a “key-person” in the process of materializing a pedagogy where children and adults search for and create meaning and a meaningful life: The space is no longer simply background, but a key player: organizing a space means organizing a metaphor of knowledge, an image of how we know and learn. In fact, if knowledge does not progress by formalization and abstraction but, as it seems, by the capacity to contextualize, to create relationships, to act and to reflect, then the spaces and the furnishings, the lights, the sounds must allow relationships, actions, reflections, sharing and collaboration. So here we have the concept of designing the environment that also means designing life, which means constructing a context in which it is possible to continue to live. (Rinaldi as cited in Vecchi 2010:98) Space, then, may be seen as a tool in creating the atmospheric prolongation of continuously questioned and created ideas of the purpose, aims and ends of

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upbringing, teaching and education, including the image of the child. As said, the image of the child creates the starting point for education. Questions of which image of the child should initiate and shape education is a value-based question, it belongs to an ethical dimension of pedagogy and it is to this dimension that we now turn.

The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Ethics In the early history of education in the Western world, education concerned a collective and generational effort: “To begin with, education is not a practice which concerns the individual alone: it is essentially a function of the community.” ( Jaeger 1939/1945: xiii). Yet, even though education here was conceived as a function of the community and a societal task, such task was formulated in close connection to what was considered the ideal of an individual human being. As the concept of paideia developed it became “connected with the highest areté possible to man: it was used to denote the sumtotal of all ideal perfections of mind and body – complete kalo-kagathia, a concept which was now consciously taken to include a genuine intellectual and spiritual culture” ( Jaeger 1939/1945:286, see also Säfström 2019). Despite being an ideal this was by the ancient Greeks very concretely pursued: “The ideal of human character which they wished to educate each individual to attain was not an empty abstract pattern, existing outside time and space” ( Jaeger 1939/1945:xxiv). And yet, even in this early history of education, that ideal, or in contemporary terms, that image of the child, was not given once and for all: “it would be a most dangerous misconception of what we have described as the Greek will to shape individual character on an ideal standard, if we imagined that the standard was ever fixed and final” ( Jaeger 1939/1945:xxiv). The image of the child, then, just as the image of “perfection” and the “ideal” human being, is something that changes and transforms over time. In the early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia such transformation is both acknowledged and discussed: “Ours is a time of transition and our generation is transient” (Rinaldi 2006:79). The transitional character of children and childhood stands in the centre of the pedagogical endeavour and in contrast to antique ideas of an ideal human being, it is here stated that “an ideal child or human being do not exist” (ibid:81). Such refusal of a determinate image of the child is based in a respect for all human beings and children being “educationable”, continuously evolving and changing, and, moreover, unpredictably so (Cagliari et al. 2016). This is an important part of ethics in the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia: The respect for the child and the human being implies believing, above anything else – ethically speaking – in non-determinism. (Hoyuelos 2013:81)

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And, yet, however important such non-determinism is, it is in this pedagogy considered that the worst of betrayals is to not acknowledge the child at all – to leave the child unnoticed and unnamed: One of the biggest crimes, according to Malaguzzi, is that children remain without an identity, without a name (in the metaphorical sense of the concept), without a culture declared and acknowledged by adults. Without this identity, the child cannot find the sense and meaning to his own ‘being in the world’. And the child comes into the world to search for and find a meaning to that world and to its own existence. (Hoyuelos 2013:63) There is, then, no question of not acknowledging the real and unique child. As seen at the beginning of this chapter, there is a conscious choice in this pedagogy to consider each child as fully part of, contributing to, changing and transforming culture, knowledge and values. Children are seen as cultural meaning-seekers and meaning-makers in the quest for a meaningful life and they as well as their contributions need to be acknowledged by adults. This image of the child, however, in order to not become a “dogma” and yet another “identity-trap” too easily hi-jacked by contemporary individualist perspectives, must be paired with seeing the child as being in a profound relation with others and other things in the world. And as stated by Malaguzzi, this could be considered as taking place already from the very beginning: The first issue is that the child, biologically, cannot stand being alone, since he is not alone when he is in his mother’s womb: he hits, moves and searches for a relationship, and when he is born, he is a child that immediately looks, in order to survive, to have a relationship with the things and the world. (Malaguzzi as cited in Hoyuelos 2013:119) The meaning-seeking and meaning-making child, then, even though constituting the starting point of the educational project, must not be considered in solitude. From the ecological and evolutionary perspective that runs through the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, children’s biological evolution and “self-construction” is considered in close relation to the environment in which they find themselves. As that relation precedes the individual, and as there is no question of a determinist logic here, the traditional order and debate of the relation between the “innate” nature of the child and that which the child “acquires” through culture are replaced by integration and “synergic vision” of the biological and the environmental: Choosing the aspect of children as organisms disposed to interaction and active self-construction (…) as possessors of a great dynamism that is evolutionary and expansionist, and of initiative, dialogue and exchange,

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confirms a new synergic vision between two orders, the biological and the environmental, and puts the old opposition between innate and acquired away in the attic. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:375) The image of the child as an “active co-habitant” in an ecological and environmental context refuses any of the dualisms so often attributed to and evoked by the relation between imagined stable entities such as an individual and an environment. This is something that lies very close not only to Bergson’s conception of evolution but also to his general recognition and convergence of the outposts in dualisms. As expressed by Malaguzzi, the indeterminist, biological and evolutionary image of children: “re-establishes recursivity between usually separated elements: mind and nature, body and mind, subject and object, dependency and autonomy, integration and differentiation, intra-individual and inter-individual, rationality and affectivity, children and adults, children and children, objective and procedures”, and, instead of separating these it is a question of “integrating them in inter-related, complementary processes” (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:375). It is, then, the autonomy of the child that stands in the centre, but it is an autonomy of a relational kind where the child, from the very beginning, is already in relation with and directed towards others and other things in the world. As stated in Chapter 2, Bergson’s conceptions of the human body, brain, perception, affection and memory have resonances also with the ethical dimension in education expressed in the relation between the Individual and Society. It was there claimed that the individual could, rather than being conceived in terms of separated psychological “states”, instead and from a biological and evolutionary perspective be conceived as in perpetual becoming. Although, and importantly, this becoming is already intertwined with others and other things in the world. Not even the human brain could be seen as disconnected “from the organism which nourishes it, from the atmosphere in which the organism breathes, from the earth which that atmosphere envelopes, from the sun around which the earth revolves” (Bergson 1896/1991:24). It was also described how it is in durational time that such more profound relationality may occur and in intuition that it may be conceived, something which could invite education to consider the Individual and Society as already intertwined and indivisible durational processes. In the early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia, this profound relationality is constantly displayed and supported, even with the very youngest children. In the book Making learning visible: Children as individual and group learners (Project Zero & Reggio Children 2001) there is an abundance of examples of concrete work with acknowledging both children’s autonomy and their entwinement with others and other things in the world. The relation is here given philosophical and pedagogical value as a principle that may serve to organize the pedagogical practice. For instance through inviting children to cooperate and work in different and smaller groups where relations between children as well as relations with

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the things children are working with become visible. However, and importantly, such cooperation is here described both as something that children desire and as something that “is learned” over time and therefore also something that teachers need to prepare for and continuously support: Though the city of Reggio Emilia has deep roots of cooperative culture and organization, and though sociability is a very strong desire in children and something they continuously and autonomously practice, the attitudes and processes involved in working on projects together and collaborating are not a given. Effective learning benefits from organized collaborative situations, which, though varying in form, are repeated over time. Teachers must be prepared to evaluate whether the proposals they make to the children, the methodologies used, and the organization of the work guarantee possibilities for individual and cooperative learning. If skills of collaboration and negotiation are deemed to be important in a given society, then school is perhaps one of the places where they can most easily be explored, developed and practiced. (Project Zero & Reggio Children 2001:178) In all the examples of individual and group learning displayed in the above-referred book, it is also clear that the teachers’ role is not reduced to simply following children in their individual and collective desires, but to create meaningful contexts where children’s individual and collective processes can be further connected, developed and supported. Such pedagogical work also responds to the need to construct new forms of collectiveness in education today. As stated by French Pedagogue Philippe Meirieu: In a world where individualisation seems to be an irreversible movement and where, at the same time, the need to (re)construct collectiveness is more necessary than ever before, it is possible, after all, that it is within pedagogy that one has to go looking for some possible trajectories.10 (Meirieu 2007:32, my translation) Pedagogy does carry resources for thinking about new forms of collectiveness, and as indicated above, collectiveness may concern both human and more-thanhuman realities.11 It may not only concern how human individuals become and come together but such emergence may also be extended beyond that “decisive turn where experience becomes human” (Bergson 1896/1991:184) and go for other human and more-than-human relations. Dewey is amongst the many pedagogues, perhaps the pedagogue, that accentuated not only aesthetics in education as described above, but also how collectiveness is connected to an ongoing creation of both self and world in educational experiences and events. Bergson and Dewey were in contact on several occasions, particularly during Bergson’s

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stay at Columbia University in 1913.12 There are, perhaps irreconcilable, differences between Dewey and Bergson,13 but there are also some striking similarities. In line with Bergson’s non-mechanist and non-finalist conception of evolution, Dewey’s philosophy and pedagogy depart from a metaphysical system that he calls “empirical naturalism”, or “naturalistic empiricism/humanism”, where human and nature are seen as deeply interrelated and co-emergent, and he introduces – in opposition to “foundation” or “interaction” – the notion of “transaction” to account for the emergent features of both human and world (Stoller 2018:49).14 The deep relationality between children, children and adults and children, adults and things described above also has resonances with two figures in historical and contemporary pedagogy: the pedagogical relation (Friesen 2017) and the pedagogical triangle (Houssaye 2014). The first acknowledges that all human relations are marked by asymmetry and that these relations always are of a “fragile” character, and yet, that there is always a striving for mutuality and reciprocity. The second points towards the necessity of keeping not only the human relations vital, in balance and in focus, but equally so the educational content under study. The child, the teacher and the content form the three components of the pedagogical triangle that need to be held together in a continuous act and attempt to create equilibrium. These figures are, then, an invitation to avoid any all too introspective reflection and to direct attention and reflection also towards things in the world. Both these figures relate to the notion of care in education, and in line with the above, care for both humans and things. As the nomination indicates, early childhood education and care, care is an indispensable part of education with young children and an “ethics of care” has been practiced and theorized throughout the history of ECEC. Canadian Professor in Early Childhood Studies, Rachel Langford (2020) identifies two slightly different traditions in early childhood that are of particular interest for the above-described image of the child and the deep relationality that marks that image: a reconceptualist and a feminist ethics of care. The main difference between these traditions resides in their respective conceptualization of children’s “needs”. Reconceptualist conceptions imply a questioning of developmental perspectives on children’s needs as these have often been treated as deficits while feminist perspectives consider needs as being something fundamental for and shared by all human beings (ibid). Further, the reconceptualist tradition has entailed a critique of an intensification of deficit perspectives on care in the current political situation and also a questioning of and attempts to go beyond anthropocentrism in ethics. But also the feminist tradition of an ethics of care has delivered critique towards current political preferences for the autonomous and independent individual. Within the frame-work of critical moral and political theory scholars in this tradition have insisted upon the fundamental values of responsibility, responsivity and interdependency (ibid).15 Langford suggests that a joining of these traditions, paired with a widening of the concept of care to include also care for other and more-thanhuman worlds, opens up a perspective where “children, as relational and embodied subjects, express their complex needs and respond to the needs of others in

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generative encounters in human and more-than-human worlds, grounded in an ethics of care that recognizes the vitality of all things” (Langford 2020:31). Such ethics of care is obviously not something set once and for all but is rather something that needs to be critically, creatively and continuously discussed and done over and over again. As stated by Dahlberg and Moss (2005), in contrast to a universalist approach to ethics that aims at closure, taking on a different approach to ethics implies tending towards openness, uncertainty and responsibility: A universalistic approach requires the application of prescribed codes, a form of technical practice: the aim is closure through the application of universal rules. The other approaches we discuss requires listening, reflection, interpretation, confrontation, discussion, judgements open to questions: there is no escaping the provisionality of this practice, nor its messiness. The one holds out the security of certain foundations, the other the uncertainty and responsibility of needing to make a choice. (Dahlberg & Moss 2005:13) This resonates with Bergson’s explicit reasoning on ethics in terms of the two sources of morality and religion: the open and the closed. But it also evokes the different temporal orders that lie behind both the Bergsonian sources and the different approaches to ethics: durational time is what underlies and flows through both the above-presented image of the child and “open” ethics of care. An ethics of care, as seen above, is also closely related to politics, “ethics and politics are in relationship” as Dahlberg and Moss (2005:125) put it, and it is to time and the political dimension of pedagogy that we now turn.

The Dimensions of Pedagogy: Politics In the present book the political dimension of pedagogy is defined as pertaining to time and to the relation between Past, Present and Future. But also, to freedom. Freedom may, as seen in the first part of this book, be the most central of all problems in education and pedagogy. The intimate relation between time, freedom and politics is expressed throughout the history of education and pedagogy. Not only has education been marked by a certain, and certainly quite often negative and liberty-limiting, “time-politics”, expressed in the concrete (often rigid and dividing) organization of a school-day and as a parameter for measuring results (time has often served as an indicator of skill, e.g., the fastness with which a child resolves a given problem, see, for instance, Sundberg 2005). But the relation between time, freedom and politics also pertains to the whole idea of the purpose, aims and ends of education and to the image of the child. A child that is seen as not yet ready for contributing to culture, knowledge and values in society will give to education the purpose and aim of preparing the child through the acquisition of past culture, knowledge and values, in order for contribution to these to take place in the future. Once the child is properly educated it can also lay claims to freedom.

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The problem with this idea, regardless of any discussion about whether children are to be seen as “political subjects” or not, is not only that an education for freedom, to not turn into its opposite, must take place through freedom. The problem is also that, again, anyone who has been even remotely close to children, will know that they defy this postponed freedom already when very young: they sometimes seem remarkably and, for some, annoyingly, free. If the idea of postponed freedom really functioned, education would not be a problem at all. Yet, it is. And that is so because, in fact, human beings and even very young children carry the potential of being free and having a feeling of freedom (at least to a larger degree than inert matter, e.g., children are not, unlike machines, completely “programmable”). And yet again, just as Bergson stated in Chapter 2 of the present book, we are rarely free. And it suffices to think once about the current global situation to realize that freedom comes with different degrees in different times and at different places. Moreover, it is a well-known fact that one way to acquire freedom is to acquire the culture, knowledge and values that are currently held in high esteem in a given society. Still, even in the harshest of situations, there is a potential for free acts and even in the most favourable of situations, you may master most of what is highly estimated and still not feel free. So, the original problem seems to remain: how to educate for freedom through freedom? As mentioned in the introduction to this grammar and semantics, this is precisely the problem that the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia had to affront already in the initial phase of the development of the pedagogy and the early childhood centres. To begin with, the question of freedom is by Malaguzzi explicitly addressed as being badly posed when freedom is opposed to authority: For too long freedom and authority have been contrasted as two opposite concepts on a philosophical level, two ways of thinking and applying education. Instead freedom and authority are two needs, two complementary necessities in children. They are led to exercise their freedom within the limits of certain rules and they expect these from adults like a parapet built for their safety. We only need to reflect how children organise games and activities. They make rules and laws for themselves, modify them, update them, and in the end respect them with absolute rigour. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:55, original emphasis) It is, then, not a question of any “romanticized” appeal to a free child at stake here, but neither is there any idea of adult socialization and instruction being the only way to freedom for the child: For children to acquire the real values of socialisation they must first and foremost be complete, inhabit their body and mind, as well as their history, [and] internalise through real acts and not through preached lessons all the solidarity and freedom the world has for them. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:179)

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Rather, the resonances with Bergson’s notion of freedom resound loud and clear also here. As with Bergson’s attempt to navigate between determinist and libertarian positions, also this pedagogy places itself midway in the question. Authority and freedom are not opposites but interdependent conditions for children’s exercising of freedom, and this so also in children’s own explorations of the question. Moreover, just as with Bergson, the question of freedom, in this case for children and as children navigate it, implies the “profound self ” – both body and mind as well as one’s history – and it is through real acts that children may discover “all the solidarity and freedom the world has for them”. But also Bergson’s initial and underlying insight into the problem of freedom, namely the critique of spatialization of time and the creative “alternative” found in durational time, is actualized in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia. As stated in Chapter 2, in duration the past does not determine either the present or the future, but it does present an endless source of potential re-invention of these. As earlier stated by Elizabeth Grosz: “This is indeed the primary political relevance of the past: it is that which can be more or less endlessly revived, dynamized, revivified (…) so that a divergence or differentiation from the present is possible” (Grosz 2004:178). When Malaguzzi above speaks of the importance of children inhabiting their history to be able to exercise the freedom that the world offers them, this resonates strongly with such a perspective on time and politics. Especially as the past is not here considered to determine the present and the future: inhabiting one’s history is to have “a nostalgia for the future” (Malaguzzi, as cited in Hoyuelos 2013:132) – it is about the creative potential of the past for both present and future experiences and events. Even though the past plays a very important role in the early childhood centres, not the least expressed in the archives and documentations of past projects and events, the past is not treated in any determinist way, but rather precisely as that which can be “revived, dynamized, revivified”, capable of transforming the present and the future. As stated by Italian and Swedish scholars Stefania Giamminuti and Gunilla Dahlberg: School in Reggio Emilia is viewed as a place made up of ‘layers of experiences and feelings,’ where ‘history is a form of narrating the past,’ and which creates possibilities for the present and the future. (Giamminuti 2013:162) In any case, from what I have understood, Malaguzzi and the Reggio Emilia experience have not fed themselves from a nostalgic desire to go back to the beautiful times of yore. His point of view about our era and about the child has not been based on the construction of narratives about “future and progress” or of “decline and nostalgia”. But rather they have adopted a position of dialogue with the present, connecting and confronting their daily pedagogical practice with the different scientific and philosophical perspectives. Quoting Malaguzzi: ‘Pedagogy has not created

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itself, it can only be created through an affective or comparative relationship with the present’. He has also highlighted that it has not sheltered an infantile optimism, but rather a sceptical position in regards to the certainties of the past, the present and the future. (Dahlberg, as cited in Hoyuelos 2013:131) Moreover, this “long” and durational time, time that goes by, is very concretely expressed in the everyday activities in the schools. Time is here seen as a right for children and educators, and they are “given time” to pursue with their collective adventures: The value of time in its conceptualisation as time that passes creating a history does not stand alone in the schools of Reggio Emilia (…) it goes hand in hand with a daily attitude that values time to learn, to research, and to encounter each other as a right, for children and educators. (Giamminuti 2013:163) It truly is a question of a collective adventure in time, but where children and adults also have time to be, experiment and work together. It is also a question of different timely “rhythms”. Because childhood and “its times, rhythms, ways of organizing work and forms of democracy” often are “unanticipated and not always easy to understand or accept when they happen” (Vecchi 2010:148), there is the need for teachers to continuously trying “to get to know” children better (ibid:147) and to adapt to their rhythm. If departing from the idea that children already are contributing to culture, knowledge and values, then, one condition for educating through freedom is to get closer to children, so that you may see how they navigate this as well as the question of freedom itself. It is also a question of avoiding “crushing” children’s “free” acts and initiatives and instead adapting the educational effort to these (ibid). At the same time, this does not imply any total freedom from and to anything and everything. That the timely adventure is a collective one implies that not only teachers but also children are asked to make an effort. An effort, however, that in order to not become simple and all too liberty-limiting instruction, must be interesting and pleasurable for children and rooted in a shared objective amongst everyone involved: The effort and determination that are always required in learning situations are more acceptable to children when they are aimed at a clear and shared objective or when they are applied to interesting situations, but above all when they are associated with pleasure and gratification. (Project Zero & Reggio Children 2001:178) The prolongation of Bergson’s conception of time and freedom that Elizabeth Grosz has proposed in terms of positive freedom to, is, then, clearly seen in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia; what stands in the centre is a focus on what

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children and adults in the name of freedom to can invent and do. The suggested Bergsonian-inspired notion of scholé – free time – was in Chapter 2 described as embracing the durational, intuitive fulfilling of willed acts that transform both ourselves and the world, and it seems that it is something of this sort that is going on in the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia. But also the history of education and pedagogy carry rich resources for conceiving time and freedom in different ways than through an all too severe “time-­politics”. This is the case with, for instance, the notion of pedagogical tact, introduced into the discourse of pedagogy by earlier mentioned Herbart (Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018; Korsgaard, Larsen & Wiberg 2020). Tact pertains to the practice and theory of teachers’ interactions with children and turns around the question of when and how to intervene in children’s activities. American scholars in education Norm Friesen and Richard Osguthorpe (2018) interpret pedagogical tact as not primarily based in intellectual and rational choice, but rather as something “improvisatory, intuitive, even ‘felt’” where to “sense or know ‘the right thing’ to do in a particular situation means to rely on knowledge or sense that is implicit, and even emotional, rather than explicit and logical” (Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018:258).16 Tact, then, is “the immediate director of our practice” (Herbart as cited in Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018:257). The resonances with Bergson’s alternative mode of knowledge, intuition, is here obvious, but so is also the resonances with his preferred paradigmatic example of duration in music. Tact is also a musical term and as such closely related to rhythm, this, as seen in Chapter 2, educational scholars from New Zealand and Norway, Peter Roberts and Herner Saeverot (2018) have already paid attention to. And, as stated, for Roberts and Saeverot, this rhythm is precisely what the teacher needs to pay attention to, to be able to treat children in a tactful manner with tenderness and generosity: Tact is, to be brief, a time definition of rhythm. In this light, tenderness is a question of timing. The teacher who does not have timing will most likely not be able to relate to the time of the students. Therefore, the teacher should leave the door open for something to happen, in order to be able to treat the students in a tactful and tender, sensitive and generous manner. If the teacher makes no room for this, she may become like the musician who gets out of time. (Roberts & Saeverot 2018:115–116) This, however, certainly seems to be something necessary to revive, dynamize and revivify in the contemporary educational situation and many scholars really do contribute to such a task by evoking different notions of time in education (see for instance, Farquhar 2016; Kohan 2016; Kohan & Weber 2020; Murris & Kohan 2021;Pacini-Ketchabaw 2012; Pacini-Ketchabaw, Vintimilla & Berry 2021; Säfström 2020). All these efforts are of utmost importance to questions of time, freedom and politics in ECEC and another wonderful contribution to this literature is British Professor in Education, Alison Clark’s (2023) book Slow knowledge and the unhurried child: Time for slow pedagogies in early childhood education.

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In this book, Clark carefully goes through motives for slowing down the speeded pace introduced in ECEC by a contemporary political focus on efficacy, measurement and results. Clark makes us see the incredible hurry with which children and adults alike are forced to proceed through educational life – from preschool to university – and also the consequently and severely reduced freedom for all involved. Through empirical investigations and theoretical resources, notions of “clock-time”, “wasted time”, and, not the least, “play-time” are evoked, and as in the present book, Froebel is brought to the foreground as a historical source evoking both a different conception of time and of freedom: it is here a question both of a freedom from teaching as pure instruction and a freedom for children to engage more fully in their own activities. Of particular interest for the Bergsonian notion of time introduced in the present book is the reference Clark makes to Harriet Cuffaro’s concept of “stretched time” or “non-fragmented stretches of time”, that are described as the necessary rhythm for children to become more deeply involved, to experiment and to engage in more meaningful activities (Clark 2023:31-32). This is quite literally what Bergsonian duration could imply in education. And just as in the present book, Clark also acknowledges that both the notion of “pedagogical tact” and the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia are of importance for any education that wants to pay attention to time. Not the least the notions and “strategies” of a pedagogy of listening, aesthetics and the hundred languages and pedagogical documentation developed in Reggio Emilia, that Clark shows are some of many potential tools for an “unhurried” school and a “slow pedagogy”. Further, and in resonance with Bergsonian duration, Clark proposes to take “the longer view” and to engage in “timefullness” where there is a “deep attention to the present but in such a way that can encompass past and future” (Clark 2023:131). Finally, Clark offers what could be called a “manifesto for timefullness” in ECEC, by stating that: A patient kindergarten that embodies slow pedagogies and values slow knowledge could: • • • • • • •

Make time, place and materials for children to explore what they think through play. Create opportunities to deepen and extend children’s learning through ‘being with’ and revisiting moments through pedagogical documentation. Make time to listen to children’s ideas and experiences through a range of expressive languages. Prioritise time to listen to multiple perspectives from families and colleagues. Be a place of resistance, unafraid to encounter uncertainty and difference and to challenge policies that sit uncomfortably with pedagogical principles. Be a place where taking the longer view is valued: about children’s lives, about education and the planet. Value the ”here and now and”: pay close attention to the present whilst recognizing children’s past knowledge and experiences and being mindful of their future. (Clark 2023:132)

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In this rich account of alternative conceptions and practices of time in education Clark shows that not only is there a need for “slowing down” education and pedagogy, but with reference to environmentalist David Orr she also points towards the potential in “slow knowledge”. Such knowledge is not only “ecological” and “resilient”, but also “sense-based” and “elegant” and it pertains to “context, patterns and connections” as well as to “complexity” (Orr as cited in Clark 2023:50). Such is also the logic of pedagogy in the grammar and semantics presented here and it is to that logic that we now turn.

The Logic of Pedagogy: Contextuality, Complexity and Relationality When studying the practice, science and long knowledge tradition of pedagogy it becomes, sooner or later, clear that pedagogy and pedagogues are carrying and driven by a specific logic: a particular way of reasoning and putting forward arguments about the pedagogical phenomena identified above. The logic of pedagogy is three-folded and marked by contextuality, complexity and relationality (Svensson 2009). Upbringing, teaching and education cannot be pedagogically discussed without putting them, each time and for every specific question, these evoke, in a context where simplified cause-effect explanations fall short in favour of more complex and relational argumentation. For instance, and as seen in the account of the grammatical components above: a child cannot be fully understood if not taking the entire educational situation and context into account; a child’s development cannot be fully explained by the same causes always leading to the same effects, but must be understood within complex meaning-making processes and in the child’s search for a meaningful life; a child, finally, cannot be fully understood in terms of separate states or as a separate entity, but must be understood as a relational and continuously becoming being. Bergson’s philosophical and metaphysical work confirms and resonates with such logic: an individual organism inhabits and evolves in an environment in an active way; neither mechanism nor finalism can explain such evolution in terms of the same causes always producing the same effects, there is a much more profound cause, a vital impetus and an excessive and unpredictable creation that makes life endure and evolve; and, finally, relations are not between separated entities in a dualistic order, but each imagined entity is already and from the very beginning intertwined and reversible. Bergson’s work may further enhance the logic of pedagogy, and together they may replace any all too clumsy argumentation on upbringing, teaching and education. In contextual, complex and relational matters it is always a question of not relying on “old” and “geometrical” powers of logic but instead of appealing to an esprit de finesse (Bergson 1934/2007:25). Such esprit de finesse is also visible in the arguments on upbringing, teaching and education put forward in the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in

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Reggio Emilia where the logic of contextuality, complexity and relationality is enhanced: Malaguzzi himself entirely understood the significance of context: it was an important part of what might be termed his paradigmatic positioning – the way he saw, interpreted and related to the world. Other important parts of that position, which he foregrounds increasingly as the years pass, are connectivity and complexity. (Moss 2016:xvi) In tune with the biologically driven and empirical study that Bergson performs on questions of free will, matter, memory, the evolution of life, morality and religion, the pedagogy and the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia also recognize the profound roots of the logic of pedagogy in bare Life itself: We are part of an ecosystem and we must be convinced of this, that our earthly journey is a journey made together with the environment, with nature, with the cosmos, that our organism, our morality, our culture, our knowing, our sentiments, are all connected with the environment, with the universe, with the world, with the cosmos (…) Just as the alternation of day and night are a part of our rhythms, of our biorhythms, and just as day and night are part of and belong to the world’s life cycles. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:329) Logic, then, even though it may not at first sight seem to be a particularly thrilling notion, may, in the case of pedagogy, these early childhood centres and Bergson’s philosophy, be a question of Life itself. In that sense, perhaps more than anything, that which resonates loudest and clearest between Bergson’s metaphysical time and the logic of pedagogy is the notion of hesitation. Bergson’s time is hesitation: “Time is this very hesitation, or it is nothing” (Bergson 1934/2007:75). This was shown in the account of how the evolution of life takes place through hesitation, but also in how consciousness occurs precisely in that hesitating moment between act and thought. Both the material “external” world and our “inner” selves, then, are marked by hesitation: hesitation is the beginning of creation of outer and inner worlds in time as it goes by. This is perhaps the most admirable and important, but nevertheless, the least appreciated and recognized feature of the logic of pedagogy. Yet, as will be seen below, it occurs all the time in all domains of pedagogy. Pedagogy is, per logical definition, a pedagogy hesitant.17 A pedagogy hesitant seems to take place also in the pedagogy and early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia, here often named under the valued principle of uncertainty. As Malaguzzi states, this is the very character of the teacher profession and of life itself: “I mean to say ours is the ‘profession of uncertainty’, but life is a profession of uncertainty” (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:332).

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Uncertainty is here removed from its negative connotations and instead conceived as the very “motor of knowledge”: I believe uncertainty should be freed of its small degree of negativity and any denials of its virtuous nature; it must be brought back as a constituent element of our lives, of our relations with ourselves, with others and with nature (…) Then uncertainty becomes a constant and permanent reality, and can act as an alternative to less uncertain notions; it becomes a force, an energy we can always find inside us, in our capacity to problematise and give responses – sometimes connected with a hope, sometimes connected with a precise purpose and objectives, sometimes with precise and pertinent knowledge. Uncertainty can be turned into something positive when we start to test it and see it as a state of ferment, a motor of knowledge. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:334–335) Such uncertainty is also, as will be seen below, confirmed by many pedagogues. It is expressed by these in resonance with Bergson’s treatment of dualisms and in attempts to navigate these in a more sophisticated way, and that, according to Meirieu (2007), is also the reason for why pedagogy is of the most central actuality today: In fact, nothing is more actual than pedagogy: at the margins of large institutional and philosophical systems, she has elaborated poaching thoughts, cultivated new ways and proposed alternatives in order to get out of infernal oscillations between nature and culture, the given and the acquisitioned, authority and liberty, the taking into account of conditions and the necessity of going beyond conditions etc.18 (Meirieu 2007:32, my translation) In a Bergsonian fashion, then, pedagogy clearly sees and identifies the extreme poles of dualisms but tries in act and thought to navigate and find alternatives to these (Houssaye 2002, 2014; Meirieu 2007). In education, and especially in ECEC there is, for instance, as indicated above, always a delicate navigation to be made between nature and culture and the notions of the “innate” and the “acquired” need to be rendered more sophisticated. Because of this “double condition” of pedagogy, she also works at the margins of systems (although she vividly refuses to position herself as marginalized).19 She forces herself to momentarily step aside, slow down and install herself in a mode of hesitation. Such great and apparently reassuring entities as “truth”, “power” or “good will” is not enough for pedagogues, who still “dare” and “try”, having no other recourse than to “an uncertain truth, an uncertain power, an uncertain good will, always nevertheless provisional and constantly questioned”20/(Houssaye 2014:114, my translation). Pedagogy, then, is traversed by “singular explorers iron-marked by uncertainty”21(ibid, my translation).

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Due to the fact that uncertainty and hesitation in the “old” and “geometrical” powers of logic are considered weaknesses, pedagogy and pedagogues constantly run the risk of being conceived as harbouring a “weak” or “confused” character. This goes especially for women and children engaged in ECEC, that through inherited gendered and age-discriminating structures often are equated with such characteristics. This, however, to paraphrase Bergson, is just an illusion as: The pedagogue is someone uneasy, worried and anxious, not due to weakness or lack of structure and point of references, but because he forces himself to look, often difficult, realities in their face.22 (Meirieu 2007:26, my translation) It is, then, not by weakness or imprecision that the pedagogue hesitates. On the contrary, hesitation is necessary if we insist upon precision in front of complex realities. This is something visible in all three domains of pedagogy: in its’ practice, science and knowledge tradition. For instance, any teacher engaged in pedagogical practice, and especially teachers that engage with the youngest children, will testify to the impreciseness and inaccurateness of abstract and formal accounts of educational experiences and events. Educational reality, especially when actualized with the very youngest children, literally hits you in the face. Not necessarily in an unpleasant way, but certainly in unexpected ways. No matter how well you thought through what you were intending to do with the children, something different will happen. Culture, knowledge and values will, inevitably and especially with the youngest children, be transformed in the educational setting. No matter how well you thought you knew a child, or yourself, there is always, inevitably and especially with the youngest children, the inspiring and demanding potential of the child, and you, becoming otherwise. For these reasons, teachers, if sensitive to this, know the limits of their knowing (not necessarily only in a Socratic, but perhaps also in a Diotimatic sense) and will therefore frequently hesitate in their pedagogical practice. As shown by Norwegian scholar in pedagogy and ECEC Nina Johannesen (2013a), hesitation here evokes recognition of the fact that you are being addressed, and demandingly so, even persecuted, by another being of which you do not know everything. This disturbs and interrupts not only what you planned to do, but also forces you to hesitate with respect to and for the child as well as for yourself in your role as a teacher (Biesta 2012; Friesen 2017; Johannesen 2013a, 2013b, 2015). This does not mean that hesitation in pedagogical practice is a “sad story”. On the contrary, and as many teachers from preschool to university argue, it is precisely acts of hesitation, the non-knowing aspects and uncertainties of pedagogical practice that may be the reason for one’s investment as a teacher. This not the least as they also open for affective contexts where friendship, joyous encounters, intellectual hospitality and collective experimentation and exploration of new universes can occur ( Johannesen 2013a; Larsen et al. 2022; Olsson 2009; Stellar 2012).

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Within the domain of pedagogy as a science there is also hesitation. Scholars and researchers in pedagogy are often sensitive to the uncertain character of educational experiences and events. They join teachers in a refusal of simplified accounts of “what works” in education and often evoke theories that can harbour the ambivalence of not knowing. For instance, through the use of French philosopher Jacques Derrida’s (1930–2004) notion of aporias: “double contradictory imperatives or moments of ‘not knowing where to go’”(Allan 2014:321), that may be productive of a more profound theoretical investigation and intervention that “favour undecidability over calculability” (Allan 2014:322, see also Langmann 2013). Historically and within a pedagogical knowledge tradition, it is very often through hesitation and aspects of “difficult” and open-ended realities that educational problems are formulated. Scholars that argue for the need to return to this tradition here evoke how pedagogues and teachers throughout the history of pedagogy have acknowledged the fragility and inevitable uncertainty of any given educational situation. For instance, through referring to the earlier mentioned Herbartian pedagogical tact that also implies that if a teacher “has anticipatingly indulged in extensive plans, practical circumstances will mock him” (Herbart, as cited in Friesen & Osguthorpe 2018:257). Or, through going back to some of the most fundamental and radically open pedagogical questions, for instance, the one formulated by already mentioned Schleiermacher: “What does the older generation actually want with the younger?” (Schleiermacher, as cited in Friesen 2017:745), or the fabulously revivifying one formulated in more contemporary times by German pedagogue Klaus Mollenhauer (1928–1998): “Why do we want (to be with) children at all?” (Mollenhauer 1983/2016:8). Such classical questions are treasures for pedagogues and should be so also for teachers and teacher-students, and still, each time they are actualized, one must doubt and hesitate as to whether, when and how the question and any potential answers may be given value and meaning in relation to actual and varying contemporary contexts. Hesitation, then, comes with the benefit of attempting to be both profound and precise in relation to educational realities. It encompasses elements of not knowing, for instance, what to do in a given educational situation, or, not knowing to any full extent the child or one-self and not knowing, once and for all, how to answer the fundamental question of what education is all about. Again, this does not imply any lack of stringency, references or strength. On the contrary, hesitation, as seen in the first part of the present book is a fundamental feature of how life and intellect evolve – it is one important, but often forgotten, part of reality and real Life. Its mode of knowledge is intuition – a reunification of instinct and intellect – and it is to this that the above account of hesitation in the practice, science and knowledge tradition of pedagogy testify. In resonance with Bergson’s duration, pedagogy hesitant, then, implies a strong sense of historical potential and present preciseness, paired with and prolonged by a radical openness tuned towards unknown futures to come. But perhaps hesitation harbours even more richness. In 1905 American Sociologist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963) wrote the essay

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Sociology Hesitant where he states that the founding father of sociology August Comte (1798–1857) was “strangely hesitant as to the real elements of Society which must some time be studied” (Du Bois 1905:2). These real elements are by Du Bois and in relation to sociology described as “the groping of men”, rather than “the group” (Du Bois 1905). The conceptual and abstract notion of a group is certainly more easily handled in “rigorous” scientific study, but, as Du Bois notes, by replacing that (durational) process, the groping of men, with an (spatialized) abstract and formalized concept such as the group, something important may get lost. American poet and cultural theorist Fred Moten (2016) calls this lost thing “a subtlety” and calls for a “hesitant sociology”, capable of studying such subtlety. Pedagogy fares well in such study of the more subtle aspects of reality, if so only due to the fact that it often is here the very youngest children move – something that to the adult eye and mind as often is invisible. Children ask questions about how to make a person able to fly, and the adult eye and mind find this amusing but do not take it seriously. This, even though it is quite recent that we did make persons able to fly and as seen in Chapter 2, even more so when it comes to making cars able to fly into space. Children explore language, reading and writing through questions such as “Why have we connected this thing with this word?”, but they are still considered meta-linguistically incompetent and immature, even though someone as prominent as Foucault (1966/1998) showed us that such a question is appealing to the most foundational meta-linguistic feature of language (Olsson 2013). So, apart from the benefits of a hesitating teacher described above, one could also say that teachers may pay attention to how time and things hesitate too and that they may attempt to follow those movements in which more subtle realities unfold. And if teachers do so, here they may find children waiting for them, perhaps expressing: “What took you so long?”. Hesitation is a question larger and beyond the individual teacher and child, it concerns the “continuity of becoming” in both us and the world (Bergson 1896/1991:138). A large question, certainly, but one that small children nevertheless seem to pay particular attention to. The above-mentioned components in the present grammar and semantics of pedagogy as well as the resonances between the logic of pedagogy, Bergson’s philosophy and children’s preferences also demand a specific methodology, and it is to this grammatical and semantic component that we now turn.

The Methodology of Pedagogy: Analytic, Synthetic and Intuitive Just as there are many ways of approaching the phenomena of pedagogy there are, of course, many different methods in pedagogy and methods may also be differently shaped and used depending upon whether they refer to the practice, science and/or knowledge tradition in pedagogy. In this sense, the variation of methods in pedagogy is endless. There are also contemporary efforts to question and offer alternatives to the concept of method as such. In contemporary

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research in ECEC there is an enormously rich and steadily growing number of alternative approaches to method, both in ECEC practices, in higher education and in the academic work of researchers. ECEC scholars here experiment with different, often philosophically and aesthetically inspired, methods in everyday practices of the early years (Blaise & Hamm 2019; Eriksson 2020; Iorio, Coustley & Grayland 2018; MacLure 2013b; Sandvik et al. 2016; Pacini-Ketchabaw & Taylor 2015); scholars question and propose alternative methods and theories in higher education on bachelor, master and doctoral levels (Larsen et al. 2022; Lenz Taguchi 2010) and there is also experimentation with more aesthetic and collective forms of academic work that no longer favours only the rational and cognitive academic mind (MacLure 2013a; Osgood & Robinson 2019; Osgood et al. 2020; Otterstad & Reinertsen 2015; St Pierre, Jackson & Mazzei 2016). Yet, despite this great variation, in many of the above-mentioned initiatives and in the resources displayed and used in this grammar and semantics, there is something that many different methods have in common: in a more profound sense, they belong to methodology. Methodology relates to the etymological sense of method as meta hodos (Gr.) implying “along the way”, and it pertains to the doctrine of method, in other words, a meta-perspective on the question of method. In line with the “meta-reflection” that initially was distributed to the pedagogue in this grammar and semantics, also the question of method in pedagogy needs to be treated as such. Rather than consisting only in the application of already given and universal methods, methodology concerns a continuous critique and creation of methods used as the process proceeds. This resonates strongly with Bergson’s “method of intuition”, in which intuition generates both the doctrine and the method (Zanfi 2020:19). For Bergson, it is intuition that conceptually reunites action and thought, matter and memory, intelligence and instinct, the open and the closed. But it is also through intuition that it is methodically possible to access free acts, the relation of our bodymind and the world, the evolution of life and the ethical aspects of our lives and our societies. This is also the case when Bergson expresses himself explicitly on education and pedagogy, here too the reflection on methods and means are not separated from the metaphysical reflections made (Lombard 1997). All this resonates with how pedagogy has been described as pertaining more to continuous reflection over and the invention of various methods than to the instrumental applying of universal and given methods (Svensson 2009). It also resonates with how pedagogy can be of both analytical and synthetical character (ibid). In other words, proceeding through focusing on both the parts and the whole. In the first case beginning with discerning the components of a whole situation and in the second case a reversed order, beginning with the whole situation and thereafter discerning components therewithin (ibid). Two different movements, then, that with inspiration from Bergson’s method of intuition may be joined and where intuition may serve as a methodological principle and tool in education and pedagogy. The nine postulates of intuition mentioned in Chapter 2 of the present book could here be formulated as methodological “imperatives”

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for pedagogues to pay attention to when engaging in the practice, science and/ or knowledge tradition of pedagogy. Below these postulates are repeated and prolonged into a methodological approach to pedagogical phenomena: 1. “There is an external reality which is given immediately to our mind.”: Pedagogical phenomena may be accessed in a direct, sympathetic and engaged way. 2. “This reality is mobility.”: Pedagogical phenomena are continuously changing. 3. “Our intelligence, when it follows its natural inclinations, proceeds by solid perceptions on the one hand, and by stable conceptions on the other.”: When approaching pedagogical phenomena one must pay attention so as to not only make use of already known perceptions and conceptions. 4. “it is understood that fixed concepts can be extracted by our thought from the mobile reality; but there is no means whatever of reconstituting with the fixity of concepts the mobility of the real.”: When using already known perceptions and conceptions in relation to pedagogical phenomena it must be understood that they capture only a part already known of the real. 5. “The demonstrations which have been given of the relativity of our knowledge are therefore tainted with an original vice: they assume, like the dogmatism they attack, that all knowledge must necessarily start from rigidly defined concepts in order to grasp by their means the flowing reality.”: When using and producing knowledge of pedagogical phenomena one must pay attention to how relativist and constructivist knowledge also run the risk of being dogmatic. 6. “To philosophize means to reverse the normal direction of the workings of thought.”: When philosophizing about pedagogical phenomena one must reverse spatialized notions and instead let thought enter the durational reality of these. 7. “one of the objects of metaphysics is to operate differentiations and qualitative integrations.”: When engaging in metaphysical work with pedagogical phenomena these must both be discerned in their parts (analytically) and qualitatively converged (synthetically). 8. “Relative is symbolic knowledge through pre-existing concepts, which goes from the fixed to the moving, but not so intuitive knowledge which establishes itself in the moving reality and adopts the life of things.”: Intuitive knowledge may come close to absolute knowledge of pedagogical phenomena. 9. “In the living mobility of things, the understanding undertakes to mark out real or virtual stations, it notes arrivals and departures; that is all that is important to the thought of man in its natural exercise. But philosophy should be an effort to go beyond the human state.”: Intuitive knowledge of pedagogical phenomena is very difficult to attain as it implies to go beyond the natural workings of the human intellect. (Bergson 2007/1934:158–163, emphasis added in point 9) These “imperatives”, then, could serve as provocations and reminders of the difficulty to attain knowledge through methods other than the ones we already know. They also reveal the importance of keeping the “double condition” of our

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existence alive and in balance: they are in no way dismissing intelligent, spatialized and solid perceptions and conceptions of pedagogical phenomena, but rather appeal to a recognition of, yet, a complement to these. The way and order in which the “postulates” and the prolonged “imperatives” are formulated may force the methodological mind to wander back and forth in a movement that takes stock of this double condition, but that nevertheless invites to experimentation with this. In that sense, and to use logical rather than methodological terms, conclusions on pedagogical phenomena may be approached through joining yet two other terms and movements: induction – moving from the empirical to the theoretical and deduction – moving from theory to empirics, in the notion of abduction – a continuous movement back and forth between these. In the pedagogy and early childhood centres of Reggio Emilia, the richness of abduction as a way of approaching pedagogical phenomena was very early acknowledged: I think philosophy and pedagogy always bear in mind inductive and deductive processes. Instead, I wish to add another term which is not generally considered, and which has been rediscovered through modern semiotics: it is abduction. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:333) Further, as the notion “method”, seemed to be too closely connected to an inflexible idea of “programmed restriction”, and not well fitted to account for the way pedagogy was exercised in practice and theory in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, the alternative notion “strategy” was developed: Instead we feel the necessity and urgency – not only professional but human – to face up to problems, events and situations in ways that are free of programmed restriction, and trust in a sort of strategic capacity, in strategies for intervening. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:333) Moreover, the concept of abduction was seen as an appropriate concept for navigating the two different movements and for shaping strategies, as, according to Malaguzzi, it is probabilistic rather than built on certainty and as such it is also a strategy that children themselves often use: Abduction, I would say, is the art of the detective who does not start out from a certain position but who follows, with a selective flow, the pathways, clues and traces, which might lead him to the discovery of the assassin or guilty party, but who is always willing a priori to constantly adapt his strategy and thinking. Now in my opinion this third form of thinking, abduction, is something that is part of children from the start (…) We [adults] find it more difficult to consider that, as well as constituting a recursive

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strategy, abduction may also lead to a conclusion and an objective. That precisely because it constantly goes back on itself and contains no certainty but pursues the probable through a series of clues, it is I think an attribute we can credit children with from the start (…) On this level of abduction strategy certainly has much greater room for manoeuvre (…) Strategy is at once a biological and a cultural necessity, because strategy meets with the willingness to live in symbiosis with uncertainty. (Malaguzzi as cited in Cagliari et al. 2016:334) As with Bergson letting intuition generate both the doctrine and the method, the pedagogy in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia seems to generate also the methodology used: the methodology is formulated in symbiosis with the foundational metaphysical, ontological and epistemological assumptions of the biological and cultural value of uncertainty. Pedagogues, then, whether engaging in the practice, science or knowledge tradition of pedagogy are often driven by methodology where such assumptions are in symbiosis with continuous meta-reflection on and creation of the methods used. That is why it is so insensitive and unpolite to ask of pedagogues in all domains to simply apply “methods that work”. Especially as, if considering the semantics and sense given to the syntax and grammar of pedagogy here, such methods will, in fact, never work. The knowledge and art of education as it has been presented in this grammar and semantics of pedagogy really does seem to demand an esprit de finesse: the words, domains, phenomena, dimensions, logic and methodology of pedagogy presented here all point towards the need to continue searching for a more sophisticated approach to pedagogy and education. What has been given here are only a few examples of an “alternative” grammar and semantics of education and pedagogy, and such work really needs to be further pursued. That also concerns the object of knowledge of pedagogy which constitutes the last component, or perhaps the from the above components resulting conclusion, of this grammar and semantics of pedagogy, and it is to that we now turn.

The Knowledge-object of Pedagogy: Scholé and Gentleness The classical knowledge-object of pedagogy could well be defined by staying close to the concept of scholé, implying to give free time and public space for the new generation to study and transform culture, knowledge and values. A general and over-arching definition of the knowledge-object of pedagogy could within such scholastic idea and practice be that it concerns generational preservation and renewal of culture, knowledge and values in education and society. But in the Bergsonian-inspired sense given to scholé/free time in this book, it was made to embrace the durational, intuitive fulfilling of willed acts that transform both ourselves and the world. And this was echoed in letting education and pedagogy begin with children’s and adults’ search for and creation of meaning and a

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meaningful life. The preservation and renewal of culture, values and knowledge became here a question of study, but certainly also, and perhaps particularly, the transformation of these. Moreover, such time-infused meaning-searching and meaning-making were described as occurring in all pedagogical phenomena both within and outside formalized educational institutions. A slightly more precise and possible definition of the knowledge-object of pedagogy could then be that it concerns the generational search for meaning and a meaning ful life in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values as this occurs in upbringing, teaching and education within and outside formalized educational institutions. Taking more components in the above grammar into account, however, one could attempt to be even more precise and say that the definition of such a knowledge-object may slightly shift depending upon the domains within which such a knowledge-object is actualized. Possible definitions of the knowledge-object in pedagogy as practice, science and knowledge tradition could then be tentatively formulated as follows. When pedagogues engage: •

•

•

in practice the knowledge-object could imply to concretely create time and place for children and adults’ search for and creation of meaning and a meaningful life in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values. The focus would here be on how children and adults do that or on the conditions under which they do that and how accumulated scientific and historical knowledge may support this, but also on how new practical and theoretical knowledge here is discovered and produced, in scientific study the knowledge-object could imply to study the conditions for, the practice of, or practical and/or theoretical accounts of children’s and adults’ search for and creation of meaning and a meaningful life in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values. The focus would here be on the practical and/or theoretical knowledge that both practice and science have accumulated and continue to produce as well as on further development of such practical and theoretical knowledge, in the knowledge tradition of pedagogy the knowledge-object could imply to study historic practical and/or theoretical accounts of conditions for or practices of children’s and adults’ search for and creation of meaning and a meaningful life in the study and transformation of culture, knowledge and values. The focus would here be on the over long-time accumulated practical and theoretical knowledge produced within both practice and science and on how such knowledge may be revived, dynamized and revivified in the contemporary educational situation.

But all this, I am afraid, is a bit abstract and formal. It is also quite fleshless. Perhaps it is necessary to include the other components in the grammar and semantics: the important aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions of pedagogy, the logic of a pedagogy hesitant, and a methodology that creates its

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methods as it goes on. And if doing so perhaps we need new and better words to describe pedagogy’s continuous quest for knowledge about children’s and adult’s meaning-­seeking and meaning-making with their whole body-minds, in profound relationship with others and other things, and in free acts. Such a word could, for instance, be tenderness (Roberts & Saeverot 2018) As recalled by Roberts and Saeverot in Chapter 2 of the present book, tenderness may have very little to do with knowledge, method or technique and it does not pertain to habits or rules. And yet, through tenderness education and the teacher may be adjusted to the time of children. Tenderness may, then, be a word that describes what is needed for any of the grammatical and semantical components described above to be able to occur at all. Or it could be gentleness. Gentleness, as French philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle (2018) in the most beautiful and intelligent way makes us feel and think, may be a word of the highest importance for any of the above-described and for any real, becoming and free educational experiences and events to occur at all. Here is gentleness as initially described by Dufourmantelle in the marvellous book The Power of Gentleness: Mediations on the Risk of Living: Gentleness is an enigma. Taken up in a double movement of welcoming and giving, it appears on the threshold of passages signed off by birth and death. Because it has its degrees of intensity, because it is a symbolic force, and because it has a transformative ability over things and beings, it is a power. (Dufourmantelle 2018/2013:1) Indeed, gentleness with its welcoming and giving does seem close to the very movement between renewal and preservation that pedagogy pays attention to. Indeed, it appeals, just as pedagogy, to an intensity and a transformational ability both in our “inner” lives and the “outer world”. Indeed too, it seems to carry the very same “nobility of a fierce beast” as pedagogy do (ibid). But more so, gentleness, and pedagogy too, concern “an active passivity that may become a force of symbolic resistance and, as such, become central to both ethics and politics” (ibid:5). To listen to children, to hear what they say and yet actively prepare for your response, an aesthetic gesture, may be a fundamental force that informs and enforces also ethical and political gestures: the responsibility to respond and to rhythmically adapt to children in the “being together, the close circle of politics and ethics” (ibid:28). Pedagogy can, just as gentleness, “be an activation of the sensitive within the intelligible” (ibid:19) and they both also belong to the necessary care for children and for us all as “from the beginning of humanity care has been related to gentleness” (ibid:13). Adults need to listen to, respond to and responsibly care about and for children and their relationship to all other things and to others; adults need to be gentle with children and childhood as “we would not survive childhood without gentleness because

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everything about childhood is so exposed, hyperacute, in a way violent and raw, that gentleness is its absolute prerequisite” (ibid:95). It is important, though, that neither pedagogy nor gentleness are anything close to “mawkishness”. Yet, it is as such that it is sold to us today: “what our society intends for the human beings that it crushes ‘gently’, it does in the name of the highest values: happiness, truth, security” (ibid:3). This is something which continuously threatens the delicate balance that both pedagogy and gentleness try to uphold between welcoming and giving, between renewal and preservation, between matter and spirit, between the sensual and the intelligible: Gentleness is also divided in two by bodies of socio-economic control. On the carnal side it is bastardized into silliness. On the spiritual side, into New Age potion and other methods competing to make us believe that it is enough to believe in them in order for everything to work. Theories of self-improvement and pursuit of happiness participate in spite of themselves in this grand market-­place of ‘well-being’ that refuses to enter into negativity and confusion and fear as essential human elements, paralyzing the future as well as the present. This division is in its essence formidable because it assaults the connection that gentleness establishes between the intelligible and the sensible. (Duformantelle 2018:25) Reluctant to mawkishness and to both “corporeal” and “gentle” control, gentleness and pedagogy too, may “open in time a quality of presence with the tangible world” as it “invents an expanded present” (ibid:10) where the past, the present and the future are seamlessly alive and kicking. Sometimes painfully so. Gentleness, and pedagogy too, may seek to go not only beyond timelessness but also beyond spacefulness: “Since the Greeks, the West has graduated borders, maintained separate orders, questioned limits. One proceeds by the concept and not by intuition, much less by analysis of sensation” (ibid:39). Yet, before and beyond such constructs it is precisely “transformations”, “transitions”, “invisible germinations” and “sentient life” (ibid:38–39) that is the centre of attention for gentleness and for pedagogy too. If not for the above reasons gentleness may be the word for pedagogy simply because it may be very close to love, joy, childhood and to the “tangible relationship to all things” that children have (ibid:7); a relationship that also evokes the power and potential of a continuously renewed reality full of astonishment, wonder and surprise: If love and joy have essential affinities with gentleness, is it because childhood holds the enigma? Gentleness shares with childhood a kind of natural community but also a power. It is the secret lining, or where the imaginary joins the real in a space that contains its own secret, making us feel an astonishment from which we can never entirely return. (ibid:3)

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If childhood holds the enigma of gentleness – the ever-re-occurring question – then it is also by gentleness that pedagogy and pedagogues may access the creative and joyful powers of childhood. Joy is “one of the names of gentleness”, just as childhood is the other “secret name” of it (ibid:67, 95). At this point the words and teachings of Diotima of Mantinea that began this chapter come back and resound with full force. Both Diotima of Mantinea and Anne Dufourmantelle seem to touch upon the most essential words and features of education and pedagogy: gentleness, love, joy and a time-infused sensory-sensemaking questioning in the intermediary transmutation of knowledge and reality; an astonishing becoming of us and the world.

Notes 1 Going fully into such a task falls outside my competency and the scope of this book, and here I only give one example of a visual and textual representation of an important woman in the history of pedagogy, Diotima of Mantinea (ca: 440 BC), but it seems to be a very important task to further pursue for scholars skilled in history, epigraphy and/or iconography, preferably in cooperation with scholars in pedagogy, that may make the research more specified. 2 Lately, it has been suggested that Diotima may rather have been Aspasia of Miletus (470-410/400 BC) (D’Angour 2019). In the present book, Diotima is mainly accounted for as in French philosopher Luce Irigaray’s (1989) article ’Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato's Symposium, Diotima's Speech’ and German Historian Werner Jaeger’s (1943) Paideia The Ideals of Greek Culture: Volume II In search of the divine centre, that is, through appealing specifically to her role as Socrate’s pedagogue and her way of putting forward arguments when teaching Socrates. Both texts are excellent resources for a full account of Diotima’s style and content of argumentation on love. 3 See Säfström (2019) for an interesting and more extensive account of the concept of paideia. 4 The much-debated notion of “competency” and the “competent” child may, then, be understood, not only as a by contemporary governing “hi-jacked” notion that attributes fixed characteristics to a desired identity of the child, but rather as an approach considering children, from the very beginning, as engaged in a search for meaning and a meaningful life. This does not imply that critique of the notion of “competency” or any other notion easily turned into “identity-attributes” is not necessary and valuable. Such critique is of highest importance, but it is equally important to understand such notions within the context they develop as well as within the creative potential they also may carry. 5 Rinaldi refers here to the courses she gives to teacher students at the University of Modena, Italy. 6 Theorell takes great care to recognize and go through the moral concerns that surround young boy’s “war-play”. But she also poses questions about whether moral understanding of such play may unrightfully put violence on to something that may well be the very opposite – an affective and sensitive way of being together, exploring and transforming the world. Further, Theorell claims the necessity of a deep understanding of children’s aesthetic, corporeal and expressive meaning-making in such play as well as in all of children’s expressions as this may present the foundation for a different way of integrating also such meaning-making into the pedagogy and didactics of ECEC in general. 7 Atelierista is the nomination of an educator with arts education working in the atelier/arts workshop in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia (Cagliari et al. 2016:xxvii).

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8 In Australian scholar Paul Atkinson’s (2021) Henri Bergson and Visual Culture the many implicit and explicit relations between Bergson’s philosophy and aesthetics and the arts are displayed and analysed in a fascinating way, not the least the notion of a continuous corporeal gesture as taking place “on the threshold of the body and consciousness” (Atkinson 2021:5) that resonates with the “minor gestures” (Manning 2016) introduced in the final part of the present book. 9 I know that Bergson, just as many other philosophers, is not unfamiliar to the protagonists in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, and here it seems that the inspiration is “Bergsonian”, but I do not know if this is the case and in any case the paragraphs stand well for themselves without direct references to Bergson. 10 Face à un monde où l’individualisation semble un mouvement irréversible et où, en même temps, le besoin de (re)construire du collectif est plus que jamais nécessaire, il est possible, après tout, que ce soit dans la pédagogie qu’il faille chercher quelques pistes. 11 This is something evoked but from a different perspective by ECEC scholars working within earlier mentioned post-humanist traditions. Again, the theoretical resources explored in this book could present wonderful opportunities for further exploration also within such traditions. Yet another growing paradigm of interest for the question of new forms of collectiveness is The Commons which is founding the earlier mentioned (Chapter 3, n. 2) research- and innovation project SMOOTH that aims at reversing inequalities and promote social inclusion of where children and youth are commoners working in commoning processes and creating educational commons (Pechtelidis & Kiuopkiolis 2020). 12 See further Sommer McGrath (2013). 13 These differences are visible through Dewey’s critique of Bergson’s conception of memory and perception that Dewey claims builds upon an erroneous distinction between knowledge and action and leads to a conception of the intellect as distorting or even falsifying reality (Sommer McGrath 2013). 14 Dewey is one of the figures in the modern history of pedagogy that may be described both as a philosopher and as a pedagogue. That requires, though, that his metaphysical and wider philosophical thought is taken into account (Stoller 2018). 15 True to the limited scope of this grammar, the resources here referred are used as examples that can give some sense, or even some “flesh”, to the different components in the grammar. This, however, implies a somewhat reduced account of these, and this goes also for the question of an ethics of care in early childhood which is a very vast field. For a full and interesting account of the traditions of an ethics of care in early childhood, see further Langford (2020). 16 Friesen & Osguthorpe (2018) follow up Jacob Muth’s work on “tact-in-action” and connects the notion of “pedagogical tact” with the earlier mentioned “pedagogical triangle” and they define and place both these historical figures within an ethical dimension of education. This is yet an example of the interconnectedness of the aesthetical, ethical and political dimensions in education and pedagogy. 17 This nomination is inspired by poet Fred Moten’s lecture at Chicago University (2016) where he paraphrases the title Sociology Hesitant, an essay written by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1905). 18 En réalité, rien n’est plus actuel que la pédagogie: en marge des grands systèmes institutionnels et philosophiques, elle a élaboré des pensées braconnières, défriché des chemins nouveaux, proposé d’inventer des alternatives pour sortir des oscillations infernales: nature et culture, inné et acquis, autorité et liberté, prise en compte du donné et nécessité de le dépasser, etc.. 19 In this manner she shares both Foucault and Deleuze’s “abhorrence for the ones who call themselves marginalized” (Deleuze 1994a). 20 d’une incertaine vérité, d’un incertain pouvoir, d’une incertaine bonne volonté, toujours néanmoins provisoires et sans cesse questionnés

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21 singuliers explorateurs marqués au fer de l’incertitude 22 Le pédagogue est un inquiet, non par faiblesse ou par manque de repères, mais parce qu’il s’obstine à regarder en face des réalités souvent difficiles.

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Part III

THE CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION

5 BECOMING PEDAGOGUE Intuition & Minor Methods

Becoming Pedagogue: Intuition Becoming pedagogue is not so much about taking a course in pedagogy, even though that may be very beneficial and even life-changing. Becoming pedagogue is, though, precisely about life and change. In this book, it is suggested that becoming pedagogue is about paying attention to the long evolutionary time – the ongoing and seamless duration and transition from past to present and future – that changes us and the world. Becoming pedagogue is about appreciating and enjoying change in life. It is about paying attention to qualitative nuances, transformations and transitions in ourselves, in others and other things in the world. Change is what marks the evolution of life on the planet, it is what colours our actions and memories, and it is within it that our acts, thoughts and will join in the invention of new things. As it is change that is at stake you do not become pedagogue once and then it’s done. After the completed course, and even though it may have changed your life, you still need to continue becoming pedagogue. For teachers, and especially early childhood educators, this is of utmost importance, and it is therefore in this book proposed that we as teachers and educators need to continuously become pedagogue. This is so partly because the long and evolutionary time that provokes change is one, albeit forgotten, part of reality in education. But it is also partly so because children quite quickly change and they are often very eager to give meaning to change and to that part of reality. Becoming pedagogue is therefore also about children’s and adult’s search for meaning. In other words, becoming pedagogue is about paying attention to and enjoying your own and children’s search for and creation of meaning and a meaningful life. But being is nice too. It is necessary and relaxing for adults and children alike. It gives us support in life as it changes, it makes it possible for us to do things with DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-9

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our body without thinking, but also to think systematically. Being pedagogue is wonderfully set in comforting and habitual routines, like those of a cat, and they are creative too. Being pedagogue is also meaningful, although it might be boring. But it is nice and meaningful to be bored as well sometimes. Being pedagogue is to rely on what is already known, what is not changing and what is repeatable, and this is something that also children appreciate and enjoy. Being pedagogue pertains not so much to time as it does to space, being pedagogue is about paying attention to stable subjects and objects with quantitative and measurable properties. For teachers, and especially early childhood educators, this is of utmost importance. Partly because such spatial solidity is necessary for our survival and for our daily lives to function; it is one indispensable and unforgettable part of reality that we are reminded of in every daily task we perform. Partly also because this gives protection and guidance to children, something which they both desire and need. In other words, being pedagogue is about paying attention to and enjoying your own and children’s habits and certainties in the meaning and meaningfulness of life. With becoming and being pedagogue come two modes of knowledge, two ways of knowing something about the educational reality one engages in with children. The first, becoming pedagogue, is connected with a more instinctive and direct mode of knowledge. The second, being pedagogue, with a more intellectual and distanced mode of knowledge. Both are absolutely necessary, but they are too often separated and the second tends to overtake the first, especially in the contemporary educational situation. Intuition is the mode of knowledge through which both may be joined, with a little bit extra emphasis on the first mode, because it is always needed, and because both historically and in our contemporary situation it is neglected. To engage in intuition as a mode of knowledge is, however, very difficult because it implies to go beyond that which our intelligence thinks it knows of ourselves and the world. Intuition may nevertheless give us access to a world where static subjects and objects and all the amazingly intelligent modes and tools by which we may know these are only one side of reality. The other side of reality is where we move without no longer having recourse to tools and intellectual representations of reality already known. On this side of reality, we may engage in the creation of new tools, new knowledge and new representations, that not only may not yet be known but that also may be of another character than purely intellectual ones. Intuition, therefore, concerns both a critical and a creative attitude. It contains both systematic thinking and a thinking that tries to lay out its ground as it proceeds. In short, a thinking and a way of relating to knowledge where that which is already known and that which may be created as new knowledge is of the highest importance but, again, with a little bit of emphasis on the creation of knowledge. Intuition is therefore particularly well adapted for gaining knowledge on children’s search for and creation of meaning and a meaningful life, as their meaning-searching and meaning-making often seems unfamiliar and unrecognizable to the adult mind, which nevertheless bears the

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responsibility of acknowledging, joining and further supporting children in this quest for meaning. Below it is described how this may be concretely pursued through adapting what Canadian artist and philosopher Erin Manning (2016) calls “the minor” in the everyday life of ECEC (see also Sandvik 2020).

Becoming Pedagogue: Minor Methods The notion of the minor is not to be understood as the opposite of the major, rather “the minor works the major from within” (Manning 2016:1). Further, the minor is co-genially following durational time, its mode is expressed in rhythm and indeterminacy. And as Manning describes it, this makes it exposed to being conceived as “unrigourous”, but just as with the logic of pedagogy hesitant, this is precisely what could be said to be its’ “strength”: The minor is a continual variation on experience. It has a mobility not given to the major: its rhythms are not controlled by preexisting structures, but open to flux. In variation is in change, indeterminate. But indeterminacy, because of its wildness, is often seen as unrigorous, flimsy, its lack of solidity mistaken for a lack of consistency. The minor thus gets cast aside, overlooked, or forgotten in the interplay of major chords. This is the downside of the minor, but also its strength: that it does not have the full force of a preexisting status, of a given structure, of a predetermined metric, to keep it alive. It is out of time, untimely, rhythmically inventing its own pulse. (Manning 2016:1–2) There exists in ECEC a three-folded methodology that carries the traits of the minor: a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation and project-work. All these are part of the methodology of pedagogy as described in the second part of this book and they are methods of a minor character; even though they have some principal traits, they still need to be re-invented, again and every time, as the process unfolds. They have their origins both in the history of pedagogy and in the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia, and in relation to the latter, they have also been conceptualized in relation to aesthetical, ethical and political features of ECEC (Giamminuti, Merewether & Blaise 2021).1 Further, the three-folded methodology and the minor methods have been both practiced and researched in a variety of settings and in relation to different contents. For instance, in relation to democracy and equality (Åberg & Lenz-Taguchi 2005; Moss 2014; Paananen & Lipponen 2016), language and literacy (Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015), mathematics (Unga 2013), the natural sciences (Elfström 2013), ethics (Halvars-Franzén 2010), indigenous communities (Smith-Gilman 2018), the pedagogical environment (Lenz-Taguchi 2010), outdoor learning (Merewether 2018), the concept of teaching (Nilsson, Lecusay & Alnervik 2018) and play

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and teaching (Nilsson, Lecusay & Alnervik 2018). Furthermore, the methodology and the minor methods have been practiced and researched in relation to teacher’s own conception of project-work and pedagogical documentation (Kratochvilova 2010; Löfgren 2017), in-service training of primary teachers (MacDonald & Hill 2018), shared documenting with families (Alnervik, Öhman, Lidén & Nilsson 2018; Rintakorpi, Lipponen & Reunamo 2014) and educational structure and organization in different national contexts (Knauf 2020; Lee Hammond & Bjervås 2020). The three-folded methodology has also gone through paradigmatic shifts in its theoretical underpinnings (Dahlberg & Elfström 2014). For instance, within a pragmatic paradigm the methodology has been connected to notions of reflective practitioners (Dahlberg & Elfström 2014) and formative evaluation (FrankeWikberg & Lundgren 1980). Influenced by a postmodern paradigm, it has been put to work in challenging dominant discourses in educational practices and theories (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013; Lenz-Taguchi 2000; Mac Naughton 2005). In settings inspired by a continental philosophical paradigm, the focus has been on how the methodology contributes to transformation and experimentation in educational practice and theory (Dahlberg & Moss 2005; Halvars-Franzén 2010; Johannesen 2015; Kolle, Larsen & Ulla 2010; Olsson 2009; Sandvik et al. 2016). In addition to this and with new readings and interpretations of Lev Vygotskij’s (1896–1934) work, the methodology has been developed and incorporated play and aesthetic expressions in educational practices (Nilsson, Lecusay & Alnervik 2018). Finally, within currently growing common worlds and posthumanist paradigms the methodology is part of educator’s and researcher’s work of re-thinking relations between humans and the world (Blaise & Hamm 2019; Iorio, Coustley & Grayland 2018; Lenz-Taguchi 2010; Murris 2016). Below the methodology with its minor methods, a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation and project-work, is further described. A pedagogy of listening has a long history in education and particularly in ECEC. It is often associated with the tradition of child-centered and progressive pedagogies and with children’s rights, where children are considered to contribute to societal study and transformation of culture, values and knowledge (Clark, Kjorholt & Moss 2005; Johannesen & Sandvik 2008; Rinaldi 2006; Sousa 2019). A pedagogy of listening has its roots and has been expressively and intensively practiced and theorized in the pedagogy of the early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia. Listening is here widened to include not only listening to what the child says or extra-linguistically expresses, even though that is of the highest importance, but listening also includes to listen to the world. It is, as described by Italian scholar Carlina Rinaldi a “sensitivity that connect” not only human beings but also an “integrated knowledge that holds the universe together” (Rinaldi 2006:65). In that sense listening is one pedagogical expression of Bergsonian hesitation in time, in ourselves and in the world: to hesitate is also to listen to that which is coming about. Listening concerns all the senses and “the hundred languages”: you may “listen” to a child’s corporeal gestures, to a child’s

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tone in an oral utterance, to a child’s eyes, to a child’s written, painted or drawn signs, to a child’s constructions and compositions of different materials. But you may also listen to how children’s gestures, expressions and artefacts connect to others and other things in the world. For this to happen, though, listening must be based on “a true curiosity, a desire, a doubt, an interest” (ibid). Listening is in this sense about really believing that children have something to say about and in the world and it is about welcoming children’s contributions to the world. Listening is further described by Rinaldi (2006), and in striking resonance with Bergson, as concerning time, meaning and the formulation of questions: Listening as time, the time of listening, a time that is outside chronological time – a time full of silences, of long pauses, an interior time. Interior listening, listening to ourselves, as a pause, a suspension, as an element that generates listening to others but, in turn, is generated by the listening that others give to us (…) an active verb that involves interpretation, giving meaning to the message and value to those who offer it. Listening that does not produce answers but formulate questions. (Rinaldi 2006:65) Listening is, then, the very starting point of the educational endeavour, and yet adults are often quite bad at it. We do not always hear what children say, and we do not seem to expect that children pose large and complex questions (Olsson 2013). One reason for us being so bad at listening to children may be that we are ridden by what Deleuze speaks of as an “orthodox thought” (Deleuze 1994a). Here problems and questions are given and correspond to equally given solutions and answers, and this does have consequences for how we treat children. The quote that introduced the present book shows precisely this: We are wrong to believe that the true and the false can only be brought to bear on solutions, that they only begin with solutions. This prejudice is social (for society, and the language that transmits order-words (mots d’ordre) ‘set up’ (donnent) ready-made problems, as if they were drawn out of ‘the city’s administrative filing cabinets’, and force us to solve them, leaving us only a thin margin of freedom). Moreover, this prejudice goes back to childhood, to the classroom: It is the schoolteacher who ‘poses’ the problems; the pupil’s task is to discover the solutions. In this way we are kept in a kind of slavery. True freedom lies in a power to decide, to constitute problems themselves. (Deleuze 2006:15) According to Deleuze we never really think, our thought is most often occupied with recognition and representation of already known questions and answers, problems and solutions. Within such thinking meaning is rarely discussed, just as with problems and solutions, it is here a given that is rigidly correlated to questions and answers. In an educational system marked by orthodox thought,

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FIGURE 5.1 

Albert’s name.

Photo: Riina Lundell.

it is the teacher who poses questions and presents given problems to children. The children’s task is to find given and corresponding answers and solutions. An example of how such thought misses out on children’s meaning-making may here be given. Figure 5.1 shows Albert’s name. As seen, there are too many lines on the letter “E”. Within orthodox thought it is likely that we will look at Albert’s name and, often by departing from developmental linguistic and psychological perspectives, consider his name as erroneous. The solution of how to write an E is here not correct – the E has too many lines. There are, however, other ways of understanding Alberts E with too many lines. Deleuze does not content himself with bringing forward this necessary critique of orthodox thought. As stated in Chapter 4 of the present book, he also, with inspiration from Bergson’s idea of problems being properly stated only once they are solved, presents what could be called a theory of meaning that reverses the order of questions and answers, problems and solutions. It is a time-infused theory of meaning that goes beyond the vanity of our attempts to state answers and solutions before we have stated real questions and problems, and instead appeals to the crafting and formulation of problems and questions in relation and proportion to the sense or meaning at stake: [A] problem always has the solution it deserves in proportion to its own truth or falsity – in other words, in proportion to its sense. (Deleuze 1994a:159) Within an educational system that takes such a time-infused theory of meaning into account the teacher engages in a listening to how children formulate questions and construct problems in relation and proportion to the sense that children currently give to the question or problem – it concerns a common engagement

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FIGURE 5.2 

Albert’s name.

Photo: Riina Lundell. A is wrinkled, wears glasses, and has not many teeth left. L is an old man with grey hair and moustache. B rides in a wheelchair and waves. E has got too many lines because he doesn’t remember how many he is supposed to have… (Albert takes a pause and laughs a lot). He has got a bad memory and forgets things all the time! R is riding a skateboard. Old folks can do that as well, they are also supposed to have fun!

in the art of constructing problems and formulating questions. Now, let’s go back to Albert’s name and take this theory of meaning and his text and context into consideration (Figure 5.2). It turns out that the context within which Albert produced this name was one where the children collectively were experimenting with giving letters and names different characters – in Albert’s case he had chosen to make an “old name”. From this perspective, Albert’s too many lines on the E is not an erroneous solution. Within this context and the sense that Albert gives to an old name, the solution of writing an E through putting too many lines is a completely proportional solution in relation to the meaning Albert gives to old age: to forget things. An old E is therefore made to forget how many lines it is supposed to have! So, we can listen to children through hearing what they say and taking this seriously (Olsson 2013). But, as said above, we can also listen through looking at and trying to understand their artefacts, such as their writings and drawings. Like in the case of a child who draws a two-dimensional bicycle with only one pedal and states: “There is an invisible pedal on the other side”. Now, how do we understand what this child is exploring? One possible interpretation here is that the child is exploring the difficult issue of how to represent and turn a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional drawing – indeed a very delicate problem! If we hear this we may engage together with that child and the child’s friends in a close study of how to draw a bike by, for instance, bringing the bike into the classroom, and by over a longer period of time exchange strategies of how to transform three-dimensional objects into two-dimensional images (see Furness 2017:65–67).

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FIGURE 5.3 

Confetti-Room.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

This careful listening to children is so much more difficult when children use other means of expression than linguistic ones. This is especially the case with very young children. How to listen to and understand, for instance, a child aged one and a half that makes sounds to his own and his friend’s signs? One possible interpretation is that the child is entering the representational logic of language that is precisely about connecting specific sounds with written signs. If choosing this interpretation, the child could be offered a room like the one shown in Figure 5.3 – an eduational offer rich in variety of form, colour and texture that could invite the child to make more connections between sounds and signs (see further Olsson & Theorell 2014). Listening, and really hearing what children say, express and do is indeed a difficult task. Our thinking and our habits seem to make us underestimate them. Listening is, then, a question of how we value children and their contributions. Therefore, a prerequisite for listening is also that the educational setting takes a stand in relation to which values should govern education. The Swedish community of early childhood centres engaged in the earlier mentioned and current research project on equality and inclusion, SMOOTH (see Chapter 3, note 2 and Chapter 4, note 11), has taken such a stance. In line with the research project’s values and central concept of educational commons, education and research is here practiced and theorized through the notions of participation, togetherness, caring and freedom. Already before entering the research project SMOOTH, these early childhood centres had taken stance in relation to what values upon which their practice should be built. They conceive of their practice as value-based and of values as being prolonged into “building stones” (Building stones document

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2021): ways of organizing the practice to ensure not only listening to children, but also equality and inclusion of all children. Values of importance for the pedagogy of these early childhood centres are, for instance, formulated as follows: •

•

•

•

“To work in preschool is to work in a value-based practice that is built on everyone’s participation in a culture of reflection where we together continuously rethink the image of the child and the task of preschool and pedagogues in a changing world.” “We want our entire organization to be permeated by the value of democracy and the child as equal with the right to influence his or her own life. We want to see the child as a whole person who learns with the body and mind in concert - we want to use the word grow to describe how we view children’s learning and development.” “Preschool is a real complement to the home, not only a compensation. Children have the right to preschool for their own sake. Children have the right to peers and to grow and develop all their skills through having access to a multitude of languages.” “We are co-researchers that establish a balance in relation to children - we do not control and govern too much, but neither too little. We interpret what children do - we try to understand what questions children ask about the world. We challenge the children in their questions and put them in relation with the group - we engage them in projects and in a common exploratory curiosity.” (Building stones document 2021)

Educators, headteachers and caregivers continuously meet and discuss these and other values and their expression in practice. It is a question of listening also here listening to each other in a continuous discussion and problematization of how these values may be expressed and come alive in the educational practice. Pedagogical documentation is also about listening. It is visible listening (Dahlberg & Bloch 2006) and it is listening as a question of time and of giving children and adults the right to time: “documentation, as an act of listening, is a tool to support adults in valuing this right to time” (Giamminuti 2013:163). Pedagogical documentation is precisely about guaranteeing time for listening and the right to time, but it is also one way of making visible and supporting children’s and adult’s individual and collective meaning-making as well as their collective and continuous analysis of the process itself: To ensure listening and being listened to is one of the primary tasks of documentation (producing traces/documents that testify to and make visible the ways of learning of the individuals and the group), as well as to ensure that the group and each individual child have the possibility to observe themselves from an external point of view while they are learning (both during and after the process. A broad range of documentation (videos, tape

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recordings, written notes, and so on) produced and used in process (that is, during the experience) offers the following advantages: •

•

It makes visible (though in a partial way, and thus ‘partisan’) the nature of learning processes and strategies used by each child, and makes the subjective and intersubjective processes a common patrimony. It enables reading, revisiting and assessment in time and in space, and these actions become an integral part of the knowledge-building process. (Rinaldi 2006:68)

As Rinaldi states above, pedagogical documentation can be performed through a variety of means: observations with written field-notes, photographs, audioand videorecording or collection of children’s artefacts. But pedagogical documentation is a “tool” in yet another sense: it is a “memory-enhancing material” that fosters “re-cognition” (Rinaldi 2006:69) and this in the very sense that Bergson gives to perception and memory. Making individual and collective learning and teaching processes visible and perceptible and engaging in collective analysis of these, is also a way of activating individual and collective memories. Importantly, though, it is here not a question of only one direction in time: it is neither pure retrospection nor prospection at stake. Pedagogical documentation does not concern a retrospective assessment of what has been done, and certainly not any assessment of children in relation to future and final outcomes in any simplistic way. Rather the materialized memories from past lived events are made accessible for collaboration in the present at the same time as such collaboration is tending towards the future. Pedagogical documentation constitutes a “time-infused catalyst” for children, teachers and researchers to remember and pursue their explorations. But perhaps most importantly, pedagogical documentation concerns the formulation of questions and problems and, again, a curiosity towards children and what children are exploring and giving meaning to in the world. Through observation and pedagogical documentation, we may re-think processes such as the one with Albert’s name, the missing pedal of the bicycle and the question of relations between sounds and signs. There is in this way the possibility of getting closer to children and getting to know them better, as they transform. In contrast to the tradition of “child-observation” current throughout the 20th century and informed by theories coming from developmental psychology, pedagogical documentation is about getting to know a child that is in relation with others and other things and that continuously changes and transforms (Dahlberg, Moss & Pence 2013 Johannesen & Sandvik 2008; Kolle, Larsen & Ulla 2010; LenzTaguchi 2010). Observation and documentation are prerequisites for listening to children and for engaging in the art of formulating questions and constructing problems. These observations and documentations need to consider the broader culture in

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which children, teachers and researchers find themselves. The observations and documentation that preceded Albert’s name, for instance, concerned children’s making of lists of everyone present in the group that they communicated with the chef in the kitchen and also other situations inside and outside the preschool where children were exploring the reading and writing of names (Olsson 2012). But, again, aside from all the concrete tools for observing and documenting, pedagogical documentation must be based on questions, or as the Swedish educators engaged in the research-project SMOOTH call it: curiosity-questions. In the SMOOTH project researchers and educators have started translating the values that mark the project and its’ core-concept educational commons into such questions. The educational commons may be identified and activated by three main features: children acting as commoners, in commoning process, where there is a co-production of new commons in culture, knowledge and values (Pechtelidis & Kiuopkiolis 2020). With respect to the above-described features of a pedagogy of listening and pedagogical documentation, it has been considered important to first investigate how children themselves already engage in the values of the SMOOTH project. Participation, togetherness, caring and freedom are therefore expressed and examined in questions of when, where and how children seem to: • • • •

be most involved, engaged and participating in individual and collective activities? express joy at doing things individually and together? show care and concern about themselves and each other? express feelings of themselves and others being able to act, think and talk freely?

Researchers and educators have considered it important to depart from the idea that children already are engaged in the commons, as commoners and in commoning processes, because if not doing this, there is a great risk of creating yet another “educational program” that shoots “above” or “besides” children and their search for meaning. But it is also possible, already in an early phase during work with pedagogical documentation, to create some offers, suggestions or provocations that may actualize some of the contents and themes one wants to engage in with the children. For instance, in the case of the content described above – the features and values of educational commons – researchers and educators are together with artists currently developing different materials that invite to working together and to cooperation, to be introduced to the children. The introduction of such offers, suggestions and provocations can be observed and documented departing from some more probing questions that present yet another “tool” for the early childhood centres engaged in the SMOOTH project: • •

How did the children approach our offer/suggestion/provocation: what seemed to interest them in the proposal? How did they express and communicate this interest: with gestures, words, glances, artefacts…?

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• • • • • •

What are the children trying to understand: which questions and problems are they formulating? What differences and similarities in interests, expressions, and formulation of questions and problems can we see? What collective and individual initiatives can we see, did these influence each other? Can we find more ways of understanding what occurred, i.e., cross over and think again? Could we have presented our offer/suggestion/provocation differently? How can we now respond to and challenge the children in what they found most interesting: what questions, what material, what “tasks” can we give back to children? (Probing questions document 2021)

When making such offers, suggestions or provocations to children, it is important to add the above-mentioned collective analysis upon what children do and how we can support them into further exploration. Collective analysis is what makes pedagogical documentation differ from plain documentation. Pedagogical documentation is a material and spiritual meeting-place for children, teachers and researchers: documentations belong also to the children and can sometimes even be performed by the children, although then it is important to know the purpose of such activity (Vecchi 2010). Project-work, like a pedagogy of listening and pedagogical documentation, has a long history in education and in ECEC. The concept of project-work is introduced in the beginning of the 20th century by American pedagogue William Heard Kilpatrick (1871–1965) that describes it as follows: A wholehearted, targeted activity triggered in a social environment (…) It is this targeted act, with the emphasis on the word goal, that I associate with the term ‘project’. (Kilpatrick, quoted in Strømnes 1995:210) Importantly, though, Kilpatrick’s definition of goals is not the same thing as the contemporary focus on predetermined achievements and outcomes. Goals, in the light of the progressive pedagogy Kilpatrick pursued, are considered as an intention and an organizational principle. Dewey stated for instance the following on Kilpatrick’s project-method: Kilpatrick’s progressive pedagogy has a purpose; and a purpose involves foresight and planning, which in turn requires the existence of one or another organizational principle. This does not mean that a fixed target must be set, but that there must be an (underlying) approach that you choose the material from (…) The guiding perspective of Dr Kilpatrick’s pedagogical philosophy has always been the conditions of the world in

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which children and young people live (…) and the need to think about what kind of social relationships they want to live in in the future, (including) the tasks and problems they will face there. (Dewey, quoted in Strømnes 1995:209) 2 In line with this historical origin and in contrast to orthodox thought, children’s and adult’s exploratory work in projects is in the pedagogy of the early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia described as concerning an unorthodox curriculum: A project is a kind of unorthodox curriculum that takes shape while the process is ongoing. Or perhaps we can say, a field of experimentation where children and adults work together using observations and rethinking. (Reggio Children 1995:12) In many ways a project-work with children appeal to Bergson’s and Deleuze’s reversed formula for questions and answer, problems and solutions – it is the intentional and organizational principle that allows for children and adults to engage in more experimental processes and in the art of formulating questions and constructing problems in the everyday life of ECEC. In the early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia project-work is seen as an approach of collective experimenting and researching expressed in the Italian notion of progettazione. Progettazione (Lat.) suggests “to produce something” and Italian scholar Stefania Giamminuti describes how this is expressed in the pedagogy of the early childhood centers in Reggio Emilia: In the arts, in architecture as in education, progettazione is a creative process, through which ideas are constructed and developed. It is not linear: the direction and ending point are often unknown, the approach is both rigorous and flexible, and the journey is a process of making connections. In Reggio Emilia, often these journeys emerge from educators’ observations of children, and they are framed through the questions that arise from these observations from listening and approaching teaching with a ‘research stance’. (Giamminuti 2013:24) A project-oriented approach, then, takes its starting point in a pedagogy of listening and in pedagogical documentation and observations of children. Further, such an approach is not ridden by pre-determined goals, but it does include having an intent and a purpose with the activities proposed to children, and it does not exclude an outcome: [A]n intent does not exclude an outcome, however the focus shifts from the ‘answer’ to the ‘question’, from the ‘outcome’ to the ‘intent’, from the ‘destination’ to the ‘how’ and ‘why’. (Giamminuti 2013:290)

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Intent and purpose can lead to learning as well as teaching towards pre-determined goals, but the process of intentional, purposeful, and collective research organized in project-work is completely different from an “educational program” with already established outcomes and goals. Closer to a Bergsonian “‘purposiveness without purpose’, i.e. purposiveness without a conceptually determined goal” (Sinclair 2020:214), but yet in contrast to any too loose idea of “letting things happen” in an “emergent curriculum”, working in projects requires a continuous “gesture of awareness” and “negotiation of intents”: Essential to progettazione is intent, or as Paola Cavazzoni (...) suggests, ‘a gesture of awareness’. The key difference (among many other differences) between ‘emergent curriculum’ and the educational project of Reggio Emilia are these infinite ‘gestures of awareness’, choices that educators make with intent, intents that then define a path forward for research. These ‘gestures’ enable participation in a community of learners because of the nature of their ‘awareness’: intents are communicated to and negotiated with families and children and they become a part of a shared learning. So, ‘curriculum’ or ‘progettazione’ (however we want to call it): is the result of a negotiation of intents between learners (adults and children), between participants in a learning community; is ‘determined by the dialogue among children, teachers, and the environment surrounding them’; and values ‘the possibility that not only families but the community to which children belong could participate in curriculum’. (Giamminuti 2013:289) Project-work, then, is rather, and with inspiration from Bergson’s preferred paradigmatic example of music, like a pedagogical dance where you collectively circle around in continuous preparation, experimentation and analysis of the content under study. Moreover, contrary to the idea that a more creative, unorthodox and participatory way of working does not include planning and organization, you here need to prepare even more! Particularly as the dance tends to go faster and faster, and sometimes you need to slow it down and leave room for all involved to think and talk about what is going on. In this dance it is important to keep focus on the components of the pedagogical triangle (mentioned in Chapter 4 of the present book): the children, the content and the teachers. These must form a “pact” for some time and must never be lost of sight. Work in projects also demands to make use of all sorts of extra-linguistic expressions and tools; there needs to be attention paid to the relationship that children have with things in the world, and there is a need to encourage the “hundred languages” (also mentioned in Chapter 4). As stated by artistic adviser Vea Vecchi, it is here necessary to nourish knowledge “that do not hurry to fence the world in more or less rigid categories of thought; but, on the contrary, seek connections, alliances and solidarities between different categories and languages or subjects” (Vecchi 2010:32).

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In that sense, a project-work is also a profoundly aesthetic adventure, as it engages both body and mind in concert and connection with that which is studied. But also, as it engages educational spaces and places as “collaborative partners” in the process. Here, it is of utmost importance that when in a project suggesting different offers, provocations or situations to children, these must be clear enough so that children may understand what it is suggested, but at the same time they cannot be so closed that children only and orthodoxically are asked to repeat what is already known. It is a question, as Dewey (1934) shows, of navigating “the enemies of aesthetics”, expressed in two extreme points: on the one hand separated activities without coherence and on the other hand overcoded conventions and mechanical repetition (Figures 5.4 and 5.5). What is the problem with the offers to children illustrated in Figures 5.4 and 5.5? None. Rather, these offers are not problematic enough. They do not identify or activate a sufficiently precise problematic. On the one hand the offer in Figure 5.4 is too wide and “loose” – it is not clear what is offered. It could be any problematic whatsoever. Children and teachers will have a hard time connecting around a common problematic. On the other hand the offer in Figure 5.5 is too narrow, over-coded and “tight”. Children are invited only to follow teachers’ instruction. Moreover, none of them are, simply put, interesting. The first one concerns no clearly communicated problematic and the second one concerns representation only in the sense of forcing an identical repetition of a motoric gesture. In line with the notion of aesthetics as it is treated in the present book, in projects together with children, and especially the youngest children, the physical place and the material environment play a very important role. A physical place is, in fact, not only material, it is also ideal – it is a bearer of meaning; it expresses culture, value and knowledge as these are formulated in contemporary society (Kwon 2004). In that sense, just as in the classical sense of education – to give free time and a public place for the new generation to both study and transform culture, knowledge and values – the place and the material is one of the most important pedagogical tools: the place becomes a pedagogical agent. As said, in Bergson’s later works it is also apparent that space and place are not

FIGURE 5.4 

Random offerings.

FIGURE 5.5 

Ordered offerings.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

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only “bad cops” that hinder duration, but they too are ridden by movement and transformation. It is this material-ideal potential that may be activated in pedagogical work with spaces and places. There are interesting artistic site-specific methods that may be used here as they include everyday intellectual and sensory-­perceptive experiences and engages a collective experimentation with space, place and materials as being both material and ideal expressions of culture, knowledge and values (Atienza 2014; Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015; Sand 2008, 2014).

Minor Language: The Magic of Language In the next and final chapter of the present book, an example will be given of a project-work with children called The Book. This project took place within a larger government-funded research-project called The Magic of Language (2010– 2012 Swedish Research Council). In the project-work together with children, the above-mentioned minor methods were all activated, but so too was a minor language. The research project The Magic of Language was preceded by a small pilotstudy during the period of 2007–2009 and was during the period 2010–2012 funded by the Swedish Research Council. The purpose of the project was to find new ways to practically and theoretically conceptualize children’s relations to language, reading and writing in a globalized society marked by (1) a changed knowledge-production, (2) digitalization and (3) a multitude of linguistic cultures. Against the background of a lack of research on literacy with the very youngest children, the research program explicitly stated the ambition to introduce new theoretical and methodological perspectives on literacy coming from linguistic social-semiotic theories as well as from philosophical perspectives. Stating the ambition to introduce new perspectives in a field can be quite a delicate affair. How to do this and at the same time avoid that we produce only “more of the same”? Also, how to approach a field that, despite being under-researched in relation to the very youngest children, still is so rich in tradition and knowledge? How to proceed to actually add something to already existing theories and practices and yet not expose any need to dismiss these? At the time of the research-project’s initiation, the field of literacy was marked by two competing scientific theoretical paradigms: an individual psychologist perspective and a perspective of social constructivism. However, at the time, little attention had been paid to how these perspectives also carried with them, and related to, philosophical assumptions of the ontological status of language (Roy 2005b). Gaining insight in the philosophical foundations underlying these scientific perspectives was considered a first step towards bringing in new theories and practices into the field of literacy in ECEC. The conflict between the competing scientific paradigms was played out on a philosophical level in a debate between realism and idealism and on a level of practice between

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“phonics” and “whole language” approaches to reading and writing (Roy 2005b). Within the “phonics” approach language was from a philosophical realist and scientific individual psychology perspective seen as a closed system with a given set of organizing rules that need to be individually and technically mastered. The “whole language” approach rejected this view and considered language from a philosophical idealist and scientific social constructivist perspective as historical, cultural and social constructions that are context-dependent and that needed to be approached as such (Roy 2005b). 3 In an attempt to get out of this “blockage” and dualistic reasoning that had marked the field of literacy, the project sought other and different theoretical and philosophical resources. Two particularly beneficial resources were found in earlier mentioned French philosopher Gilles Deleuze and his collaborator French psychotherapist Félix Guattari’s (1930–1992) philosophy and in semiotic theories presented by British Professor in Education Gunter Kress (1940–2019). Deleuze and Guattari had throughout their oeuvre questioned and proposed alternatives to the ontological and epistemological assumptions of language produced through the Western history of philosophy, and their philosophy seemed well worth pursuing further. Especially as their efforts never were a work of pure “resistance” or “critique”. Rather, there is here no closure in the history of philosophy, (nor in any other practice or field for that matter) therefore, there is always the possibility to use existing resources and rework them creatively, so that they speak together with our contemporary problems and interests in new ways. According to Deleuze and Guattari, the Western history of philosophy has posed the most common and basic definition of language as an abstract and homogenous system of universal representations used in communication and information (Deleuze & Guattari 2004). As our overview of the, at the time, current state-of-the-art showed, preschool children were most often considered as not yet capable of the meta-linguistic competency needed to comprehend such an abstract system of universal representations (Dahlberg & Olsson 2009). But our preliminary results in the pilot-project indicated that preschool children do work with representations, although, in a way that radically differ from the historical-philosophical definition. In our findings, the youngest children frequently used signs in their communications. Not only, when, for instance, drawing pictures, but they were also very familiar with alphabetic and visual signs and cultural symbols in society and digital technology, recognizing and using many of these in their everyday activities. Importantly, however, children seemed to use signs through a constant inventing and reinventing of them. That is, they functioned as representations, but they were neither universal nor organized in any homogenous way. Rather, children used signs in a very creative and pragmatic way. Children’s representational logic seemed to differ from historical-philosophical and linguistic definitions, in that it concerned the production, rather than the acquisition of representations. Our preliminary results in the pilot-project also indicated that, children’s specific and productive representational logic never worked alone and not only in relation to one kind of signs. We were intrigued by how the children seemed to use

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the same kind of productive representational logic in their gestures, in their verbal expressions, and also when they approached alphabetical signs. When children related to alphabetical signs, they did so through re-inventing them over and over again, they exchanged the first letter in a word or a name, invented new letters and even new languages (Dahlberg & Olsson 2009). This was very much in line with Deleuze and Guattari’s (Deleuze 2004b; Deleuze & Guattari 2004) alternative notion of language as profoundly creative and connected to meaning and sense right on the border of the material and the ideal. Moreover, their notion of language was also intimately connected to the above-mentioned reversed formula of problems and solutions, something which the findings from the pilot-project confirmed that children were constantly working with (Dahlberg & Olsson 2009). We also found that our initial results were possible to conceptualize through turning to a social semiotic tradition focusing children’s active, multiple and multimodal sign-making (Kress 1997, 2003). Gunter Kress’ research clearly showed how a widened concept of the sign can be used to considered children as “language makers” (Kress 1997:xvi). “Multimodality” as expressed by Kress, helped us to acknowledge the simultaneous use of many different elements of sign-making that we saw children engage in: “Children act multimodally, both in the things they use, the objects they make; and in their engagement of their bodies: there is no separation of body and mind. The differing modes and materials they employ offer differing potentials for the making of meaning; and therefore offer different affective, cognitive and conceptual possibilities” (Kress 1997:97). Moreover, Kress’ conceptualization of multimodality seemed to play well with Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of linguistic sense- and meaning-making on the border of the material-ideal and in the formulation of questions and construction of problems. These theoretical perspectives seemed able to take stock of insights from both, at the time, existing paradigms, but nevertheless add another dimension to language and literacy through insisting upon the creative production of linguistic signs. In short, these theoretical resources brought us closer to conceiving children’s ways of relating to language, reading and writing in new ways that still connected with what was already being explored in the field of literacy – they seemed able to activate minor aspects of language. The methodology in the project The Magic of Language was influenced by ethnographic research-methodologies (Geertz 1973), but more specifically put to work the minor methods mentioned above; a pedagogy of listening, pedagogical documentation and project-work were all used in collaborative fieldwork between researchers and early childhood educators. Through the network that had been active in the pilot-project, a reference-group of participants was purposively sampled (Merriam 1998) and this group met monthly throughout the project. The reference-group consisted of researchers, PhD students, an artistic adviser, educators from four different preschools, headmasters and theoretical advisers employed in these schools, student-teachers

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and teachers. At times, experts in subject content were invited: artists, dancers or other competency needed for the project-works initiated with children. As the project developed, more artistic methods were introduced and something that guided the project throughout was the project’s artistic adviser Ebba Theorell’s conceptualization of “creating irresistible zones for reading and writing opportunities” (Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015, Theorell 2021). In short, we were on the lookout for more experimental and minor methods of literacy, closer to children’s desires and to the creative dimension of language evoked both by children and the theoretical resources used in the project. Three projects with children that became of particular importance were The Name, The Line and The Book. They respectively answered the research questions on how to practically and theoretically conceptualize children’s literacy in a globalized society marked by (1) a changed knowledge-production, (2) digitalization and (3) a multitude of linguistic cultures. The results of the project The Name showed that young children work with a productive, material-ideal and multimodal linguistic representational logic, which if given time and space in the pedagogical environment may end up in children appropriating also conventional knowledge in reading and writing (Olsson 2012, 2013, 2021). The project The Line displayed results indicating that the very youngest children do not perceive digital worlds as less real than analog worlds and that they both analogically and digitally create meaning in linguistic problems by using more subtle aspects of experience such as intensity, feeling and affect. It was concluded that activities offered to the very youngest children must provide space for such aspects of reality and experience and when using digital tools clearly link these to a linguistic problem (Olsson & Theorell 2014). Finally, in the project The Book the results indicated that young children learn to read and write by treating language as a trans-cultural and trans-disciplinary phenomenon. It was concluded that early childhood literacy activities may benefit from offering learning contexts where children can use language, reading and writing in relation to a variety of different, transformational cultures and signs and with a wide variety in tools and expressions (Olsson, Dahlberg & Theorell 2015). Before entering the story of the last project-work, The Book, it may be of interest to add some of the theoretical resources that have been actualized in the present book. In fact, Bergson’s exposition of language-learning referred in Chapter 2 may shed yet some light on the question of literacy in ECEC and on the project-work The Book. It is, then, in the next and final chapter, a question of re-visiting this project – this time with some new theoretical and methodological inspiration. That language carries a minor character is showed not only by Deleuze & Guattari, Kress and Manning, but also Bergson (despite his persistent critique of language) shows that this is the case. When Bergson in Creative Evolution (1907/2007) considers how signs in the human language can be transferred from one object to another, this is understood by him as evidence of the very mobility

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of language itself, which implies not only a restriction but also a certain creativity. And he points out that it is this mobility that children make use of in language: It is observable in the little child as soon as he begins to speak. Immediately and naturally he extends the words he learns, availing himself of the most accidental connection or the most distant analogy to detach and transfer elsewhere the sign that had been associated in his hearing with a particular object. ‘Anything can designate anything;’ such is the latent principle of infantine language. This tendency has been wrongly confused with the faculty of generalizing (…) what characterizes the signs of human language is not so much their generality as their mobility. (Bergson 2007/1907:102) Further, in Chapter 2 of the present book, Bergson’s figure of the cone as presented in Matter and Memory (1896/1991) was used to also introduce his views on how we learn language. The inverted cone showed how our bodily habits (habit memory) and perceptions encounter our personal memories (representative memory) in different degrees of tension and relaxation and how it is in the movement between action and representation that general ideas are born. This was shown to also concern language-learning and a possible suggestion for education here was to create situations where the tension between different rhythms of matter/action and mind/memory may be increased. In addition to this it was also stated that we learn language all at once: language-­learning is about making “a leap” into a dimension of sense and meaning. This is something which is facilitated and complicated by the fact that language and words carry more sense and meaning than they express; even the tone of a voice may change the sense and meaning of a sentence or a word. Even though this renders language a very complicated affair, it seems to be precisely such complexity that young children explore: a creative, mobile, tensed, rhythmic and meaning-abundant dimension of language. In the next and final chapter, the project The Book will be re-visited and explored as activating such a dimension in language through educators and researchers use of three minor gestures: (1) contempla(c)tion, (2) enabling constraints and (3) composite rhythm.

Notes 1 The conceptualization of and relation between aesthetics, ethics and politics and these methodologies is in Giamminuti, Merewether & Blaise (2021) presented in a slightly different way than what is being done in the present book. For instance, an aesthetical dimension is by these authors explicitly connected to project-work and progettazione. However, I do not see any contradiction in these respective interpretations, but rather yet another example of the richness and multifaceted potential use of both the methodologies and the three essential dimensions in education: aesthetics, ethics and politics.

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2 There are both similarities and differences between Kilpatrick’s and Dewey’s project-method (see further Sutinen 2013). 3 The literacy-field has lately undergone important changes and added different materialist and post-humanist perspectives (see further Olsson 2020; Toohey, Smythe, Dagenais & Forte 2020).

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Giamminuti, S., Merewether, J. and Blaise, M. (2021) Aesthetic-ethical-political movements in professional learning: Encounters with feminist new materialisms and Reggio Emilia in early childhood research, Professional Development in Education, 47 (2–3), 436–448. DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2020.1862277 Geertz, C. (1973) The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Halvars-Franzén, B. (2010) Barn och etik: möten och möjlighetsvillkor i två förskoleklassers vardag. Diss., Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. Iorio, J. M., Coustley, A. and Grayland, C. (2018) Practicing pedagogical socumentation: Teachers making more-than-human relationships and sense of place visible, in N. Yelland and D. Bentley, Found in translation: Connecting reconceptualist early childhood ideas with practice. New York: Routledge. Johannesen, N. (2015) Medvirkning som tiltale: Møter med små barns uttrykk, pedagogers tenkning og tekster av Emmanuel Levinas. Diss., Stavanger: Universitetet i Stavanger. Johannesen, N. and Sandvik, N. (2008) Små barn og medvirkning: noen perspektiver. Oslo: Cappelen Damm. Knauf, H. (2020) Documentation strategies: Pedagogical documentation from the perspective of early childhood eatchers in New Zealand and Germany, Early Childhood Education Journal, 48 (11–19). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00979-9 Kolle, T., Larsen, A.-S. and Ulla, B. (2010) Pedagogisk dokumentasjon – Inspirasjoner til bevegelige praksiser. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Kratochvilova, J. (2010) The Teacher’s conception of project-based teaching, The New Educational Review, 21 (2), 31–41. Kress, G. (1997) Before writing: Re-thinking the paths to literacy. London and New York: Routledge. Kress, G. (2003) Literacy in the new media age. London and New York: Routledge. Kwon, M. (2004) One place after another: Site-specific art and locational identity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lee Hammond, L. and Bjervås, L. (2020) Pedagogical documentation and systematic quality work in early childhood: Comparing practices in Western Australia and Sweden, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 22 (2), 156–170. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1463949120928431 Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2000) Emancipation och motstånd: Dokumentation och kooperativa lärprocesser i förskolan. Diss., Stockholm: Lärarhögskolan i Stockholm. Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2010) Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education – Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. London: Routledge. Löfgren, H. (2017) Learning in preschool: Teachers’ talk about their work with documentation in Swedish preschools, Journal of Early Childhood Research, 15 (2), 130–143. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476718X15579745 MacDonald, M. and Hill, C. (2018) The intersection of pedagogical documentation and teaching inquiry: A living curriculum, LEARNing Landscapes, 11 (2), 271–286. https://learninglandscapes.ca/index.php/learnland Mac Naughton, G. (2005) Doing foucault in early childhood studies: Applying post-structural ideas. London: Routledge. Manning, E. (2016) The minor gesture. Durham: Duke University Press. Merewether, J. (2018) Listening to young children outdoors with pedagogical documentation, International Journal of Early Years Education, 26 (3), 259–277. https://doi-org. proxy.mau.se/10.1080/09669760.2017.1421525 Merriam, S. B. (1998) Qualitative research and case study applications in education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Moss, P. (2014) Transformative change and real utopias in early childhood education: A story of democracy, experimentation and potentiality. London: Routledge. Murris, K. (2016) The posthuman child: Educational transformation through philosophy with picturebooks. London: Routledge. Nilsson, M., Lecusay, R. and Alnervik, K. (2018) Undervisning i förskolan: Holistisk förskoledidaktik byggd på lek och utforskande, Utbildning & Demokrati, 7 (1), 9–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.48059/uod.v27i1.1090 Nilsson, M., Lecusay, R., Alnervik, K. and Ferholt, B. (2018) Iscensättning av undervisning: Målrelationellt lärande i förskolan, Barn, 36 3-4, 109–126. https://doi.org/ 10.5324/barn.v36i3-4.2900 Olsson, L. M. (2020) Lekta and literacy in early childhood education: Entwinements of idealism and materialism, in K. Toohey, S. Smythe, D. Dagenais and M. Forte, Transforming language and literacy education: New materialism, posthumanism and onto-ethics. London: Routledge. Olsson, L. M. (2013) Taking children’s questions seriously: The need for creative thought, Global Studies of Childhood, 4 (2), 230–253. https://doi.org/10.2304/gsch. 2013.3.3.230 Olsson, L. M. (2012) Eventicizing curriculum: Learning to read and write through becoming a citizen of the world, Journal of Curriculum Theorizing 28 (1), 88–107. http:// journal.jctonline.org/index.php/jct/article/view/173 Olsson, L. M. (2009) Movement and experimentation in young children’s learning: Deleuze and Guattari in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Olsson, L. M., Dahlberg, G. and Theorell, E. (2015) Displacing identity – placing aesthetics: Early childhood literacy in a globalized world, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37 (5), 717–738. DOI:10.1080/01596306.2015.1075711 Olsson, L. M. and Theorell, E. (2014) Affective/Effective Reading and writing through real virtualities in digitized society, in M. N. Bloch, B. Swadener and G. S. Canella, Reconceptualizing early childhood care and education: Critical questions, new imaginairies & social activism – A reader. Oxford: Peter Lang. Paananen, M. and Lipponen, L. (2016) Pedagogical documentation as a lens for examining equality in early childhood education, Early Child Development and Care, 188 (2), 77–87. DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2016.1241777. Pechtelidis, I. and Kiuopkiolis, A. (2020) Education as commons, children as commoners: The case-study of the Little Tree community, Democracy & Education, 28 (1), 1–11. http://democracyeducationjournal.org/home/vol28/iss1/5 Probing questions document (2021) Support material early childhood centres. Stockholm: local community. Reggio Children (1995) The fountains: From a project for the construction of an amusement park for birds. Reggio Children: Reggio Emilia. Rinaldi, C. (2006) In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. London: Routledge. Rintakorpi, K., Lipponen, L. and Reunamo, J. (2014) Documenting with parents and toddlers: A Finnish case study, Early Years, 34 (2), 188–197. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 09575146.2014.903233 Roy, K. (2005b) On sense and nonsense: Looking beyond the literacy wars, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 39 (1), 99–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j .0309-8249.2005.00422.x Sand, M. (2008) Konsten att gunga – Experiment som aktiverar mellanrum. Stockholm: Axl Books. Sand, M. (ed.) (2014) Forskning i centrum. Stockholm: Arkitektur- och designcentrum.

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Sandvik, N. (ed.), Johannesen, N., Larsen, A.S., Roe-Nyhus, M., Ulla, B. (2016) Småbarnspedagogikkens komplekse komposisjoner – Laering möter filosofi. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Sandvik, N. (2020) When the whole sky falls down: Minor gestures towards play out of place/time in toddler groups, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21 (1) 33–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463949118799917 Sinclair, M. (2020) Bergson. London and New York: Routledge. Smith-Gilman, S. (2018) Developing a pedagogy of listening: Experiences in an Indigenous Preschool, Studies in Social Justice, 12 (2), 345–355. Sousa, J. (2019) Pedagogical documentation: The search for children’s voice and agency, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 27(3), 371–384. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/1350293X.2019.1600807 Strømnes, A. L. (1995) Kunskapssyn och pedagogik – en historisk analys och jämförelse. Stockholm: Liber Utbildning AB. Sutinen, A. (2013) Two project methods: Preliminary observations on the similarities and differences between William Heard Kilpatrick’s project method and John Dewey’s problem-solving method, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 45 (10), 1040–1053, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00772.x Theorell, E. (2021) Kraft, form, transformationer: Om kinestetisk musikalitet och kroppsvärldande i pojkars krigslek. Diss., Stockholm: Stockholms universitet. http://su.diva-portal. org/smash/get/diva2:1605845/FULLTEXT02.pdf Toohey, K., Smythe, S., Dagenais, D. and Forte, M. (eds.) (2020) Transforming language and literacy education: New materialism, posthumanism and onto-ethics. London: Routledge. Unga, J. (2013) Det är en spricka i allt –det är så ljuset kommer in: Matematik och förskolebarns experimenterande och potentialitet. Lic-avh. Stockholm: Stockholms Universitet. Vecchi, V. (2010) Art and creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the role and potential of ateliers in early childhood education. London: Routledge. Åberg, A. and Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2005) Lyssnandets pedagogik: etik och demokrati i pedagogiskt arbete. Stockholm: Liber.

6 AESTHETICS, ETHICS & POLITICS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION & CARE Minor Gestures

Minor Gestures The gesture is what “punctuates” the flow of the minor “leading the event elsewhere than toward the governant fixity of the major” (Manning 2016:7). Minor gestures are close to the principle of intuition and may be used in pedagogical practice and research to conceptualize and create conditions for experiences and events of learning and teaching that are more open and experimental, yet precise and directed (see also Sandvik 2020). The minor gesture is to be understood not as belonging in first hand to the mind of an individual subject, but neither only to the body as such (as in bodily gestures), although both are also at stake here. But these are rather joined in “thought-acts” that may function as activators of qualities in experiences and events that often remain in the background in front of the quantities displayed in major gestures – minor gestures carry the event forward into new experiences and “new modes of existence” (Manning 2016:7). Because the minor gesture brings forward new experiences and new modes of existence it is also deeply connected to the formulation, or as Erin Manning beautifully puts it, the crafting, of problems (ibid:10). It does not content itself with posing ready-made problems and to search for equally ready-made and given solutions, but it is also wary of posing false problems which, as Manning in resonance with both Bergson and Deleuze states, is too often what education is all about (ibid). In many ways the minor gesture is following the logic of pedagogy and minor methods as they have been described in the present book. It occurs in duration, it joins act and thought, it is concerned with qualitative and evolving aspects of our existence and it prefers the crafting of problems (Manning 2016). Minor gestures seem to be of utmost interest and importance for pedagogues, DOI: 10.4324/9781315461779-10

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particularly for pedagogues who engage in the practice, science and knowledge ­t radition of pedagogy in the early years. Not because children are short, minor in size or spontaneously desiring the revolutionary, but rather because minor gestures may be capable of adapting themselves to children’s rhythm and interest in change. In this chapter, three minor gestures will be introduced and exemplified in a literacy event in ECEC. These are the gestures: 1. An aesthetical gesture of contempla(c)tion, meaning to listen to children and to prepare for action. 2. An ethical gesture of enabling constraints, meaning to respond to children and to create conditions for children to pursue their explorations. 3. A political gesture of engaging in composite rhythm, meaning to adapt adult’s rhythms to those of children and to join these. As with the logic of a pedagogy hesitant and minor methods, these gestures cannot be given as instrumental and exact instructions for how to think and act in every situation. Rather, they are formulated to be sufficiently stringent, but still open to each unique educational experience and event. In that sense, they are close to Bergson’s appeal to more flexible and fluid concepts (Bergson 1934/2007:141) that, just like minor gestures, are connected to intuition and to sympathy. Erin Manning describes intuition and sympathy as inseparable, yet distinct, when coupled with minor gestures: Intuition touches on the differential of a process, and sympathy holds the contrasts in the differential together, such that, coupled with the minor gesture, the ineffable becomes expressive (…) Where intuition is the force of expression or prearticulation of an event’s welling into itself, sympathy, calling forth the minor gesture, is the way of its articulation (…) To make sympathy the driver of expression in the event is to bring care into the framework of an event’s concrescence, to foreground how intuition is a relational act that plays itself out in an ecology that cannot be abstracted from it. Intuition leads to sympathy – sympathy for the event in its unfolding. (Manning 2016:57, original emphasis) The differentiation and convergence that earlier was described as the signum of the method of intuition make itself heard also here and in relation to minor gestures: minor gestures as they unfold contain both. Moreover, as seen above, intuition is a profound relational act of care that cannot be disconnected from the “ecology” in which it evolves. As with the logic and methodology of pedagogy, minor gestures pay attention to context, complexity and relationality and to that which unfolds as the process proceeds. Below, the three aesthetical, ethical and political minor gestures are described and exemplified in the project-work The Book.

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An Aesthetical Gesture of Contempla(c)tion: Initial Observations and Preparations in the Project The Book As all female pedagogues and philosophers Hanna Arendt, Diotima of Mantinea, Anne Dufourmantelle and Erin Manning together with Henri Bergson in this book have insisted: matter and spirit, the sensory and the intelligible, need to be held together. This is the aesthetic educational endeavour per se, and it may challenge pure contemplation as the preferred mode of knowledge. In line with these pedagogues and philosophers as well as with the signum of pedagogy, contemplation needs to be complemented by action. It is here suggested that an enhancement of this joint thought-act (Manning 2016) can be expressed in a minor aesthetical gesture of contempla(c)tion. Contemplation here takes on a new role and it carries an added dimension of action – it is no longer, like in its origins, the opposite of vita activa (Arendt 1958). Neither is it an introspective reflection because it does not trust solely a conscious mind. Instead, contemplation may be considered in line with the minor gesture (Manning 2016) as actively paying attention to that which in the educational event is coming about. The concept resonates with intuition and sympathy and it concerns, as beautifully put by Erin Manning, an aesthetic “uneasy balance of seeding a practice and becoming-with a practice”: Contemplation, understood as the act of lingering-with, of tending to a process, is a minor form of doing. It attends to the conditions of the work’s work. Contemplation is passive only in the sense that this attending provokes a waiting, a stilling, a listening, a sympathy-with (…) For contemplation, like intuition and its counter-part, sympathy, activates the differential of an event, and, in so doing, becomes responsive to the subtle nuances of experience crafting itself. Contemplation makes the artful felt. It does so in the event, in the uneasy balance between seeding a practice and becoming-­ with a practice. (Manning 2016:62–63) Concretely this may mean to carefully listen to children while at the same time, as carefully, preparing for also responding to them, or, for seeding a potentially new direction in practice. But it is important to stay with listening for a long period of time. Not the least as listening must be performed both to children and to that which interests them. In the project The Book educators and researchers spent several months observing and listening to children and their interest in books. But educators and researchers also prepared themselves through studying different aspects of reading and writing books: questions of whether there is and should be a literary canon, questions of the book conceived as the source of knowledge and wisdom, questions of the reading and writing of books in different formats and within different traditions, and questions of unusual books, were all discussed and studied parallel to the observations of children’s interest in books.

252  The Creative Contribution

FIGURE 6.1 

Lines.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

It is quite possible to see in this project, even now, many years later, that children and adults were preoccupied with a creative, mobile, tensed, rhythmic and meaning-abundant dimension of language. This was apparent already in the early explorations and observations of children’s relations to books. Children would relate to books and do things with books that were quite unexpected. The very youngest children would carry them around, put them to sleep in a doll’s bed and read them upside down and with the text facing outside themselves. They seemed to have a very close relation to the book as a material object, and yet, even these very young children would show, through following the text with their finger or through uttering phrases in a “read-out-loud” voice, that they made symbolic sense of the book. They would also make a difference between when they were drawing and when they were writing, and even very young children would change their style of signs and orally express when they were writing. The image of lines in Figure 6.1 is an example of this – this is how children’s signs, when stating that they were writing, often looked like. When observing these lines produced by many children, we were struck by the rhythm expressed in the lines. We associated these lines and writings to an electrocardiogram measuring the rhythm of the heart. At the same time, we studied a calligraphic tradition from the Heian period of the ninth century in Japan and found striking resonances with the rhythm expressed in the children’s writings of lines (Figure 6.2).1 Within this calligraphic tradition, the rhythm of the heart has, in fact, a prominent role. It is even stated that part of this art concerns “an alignment of the movements of the heart and the movements in

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 253

FIGURE 6.2 

Heian Calligraphy Tokyo National Museum. Wikimedia Commons.

the natural world” and “diminishing the dissonance between world and heart” (Lamarre 2002:166). Interestingly, in relation both to intuition and to children’s creative production of signs, this part of the art of calligraphy is not only, or even primarily, a question of a rational cognitive mind: At this level, the brush does not function as a tool of conscious expression but as a kind of seismograph, feeling the oscillations and vibrations of the world and of the heart, and signing these on paper, silk, bamboo splints, etc. (…) The heart is an aperture made sensitive to natural movements; it dilates and contracts with them, and the hand/brush twitches in response. Thus the writer assembles the body into a series of transformers or exchangers that translate motion to motion, operation to operation, composition to composition. The heart truly is that which moves through the middle. (Lamarre 2002:166) This seemed to us to be a very precise way of describing also what we saw in even the youngest children’s search for meaning and construction of the problem of writing: a writing of the heart and through the rhythm of the heart. These first analyses of how reading and writing seem to begin spurred us, already here during this initial phase of observation and documentation, to suggest some offers and provocations to the children.2 One such offer was made through arranging a situation with two simultaneous activities: on the one side of the room a table with clay and on the other side of the room a table with black ink (Figure 6.3). The suggestion to the children was that they could go between these activities as they pleased, and the idea was to create some synergic effects between these two different materials. From the calligraphic notion of different rhythms, it was also interesting for us to see what kind of rhythms two different materials would provoke in children’s sign-making. And different rhythms were precisely what

254  The Creative Contribution

FIGURE 6.3 

Table with black ink.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

occurred. In Figures 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 and 6.7, it is visible how the ink-signs begin with the conventional forms and letters; it is the basic forms and letters from the alphabet that first occur. But as the processes at the two tables with the two materials proceed, the rhythm of the writing completely changes and the signs become more and more fluid, more and more open and undulating and children also start communicating with each other’s signs.

FIGURE 6.4 

Rhythmic signs I.

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 255

FIGURE 6.5 

Rhythmic signs II.

FIGURE 6.6 

Rhythmic signs III.

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FIGURE 6.7 

Other friends join in rhythmic signs.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

If in retrospect, and with Bergson’s appeal to an “education of the hand” as well as to a distinction between habit memory and representative memory, looking at what adults here do with their initial aesthetic gestures of contempla(c) tion, it could be said that there is an attempt to increase the tension between the duration and rhythm of mind and things. The materials and processes that educators and researchers offer to children may be an example of letting literacy education go “from the hand to the head” in encounters between sensual-perceptual engagement with matter and more personal, individual and collective, representative memories.3 These first observations and offers to children were brought with us into observations of how the older children were pre-occupied with fabricating their own books. These books were as intriguing as the youngest children’s relations to books. The children would spend a long time fabricating their books and they would be very careful about making them beautiful with all the material resources they could find: glitter, colour, different kinds of papers and pens. But when asked what the book was about, the children often answered: “It isn’t about anything, I just wanted to see what it became”. The following conversation between one child and one educator further illustrates this: EVA:  We have made a book. TEACHER:  Oh really, what is the book about? EVA:  Oh it isn’t about anything, we didn’t write anything TEACHER:  But surely, you did something with it?

in it.

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 257 EVA:  Yeah,

I started to draw a palm tree and a beach and then Agnes saw that and wanted to do the same thing, and then Ella followed and so on and so on (smiles and makes signs with her arms showing how everything just rolled on)

PAUSE EVA:  (looks

at the teacher) That’s what the book is about.

It is worth noting not only that Eva responds by describing the process of making the book, which often seemed to be the most important part, but also that she throughout the conversation keeps the teacher’s question in mind and generously offers an answer to the question by the end of the conversation: the book was about this process we all engaged in. The children’s books were also very different from the books we adults normally think of. Two girls made a “feeling book”, with differently textured materials on each side and that you read through “feeling your way through it” (Figure 6.8). Other children would glue objects they liked and had found somewhere inside or outside the early childhood centre into the book. Again, the calligraphic tradition of the Heian period came to our mind and our analyses: the material aspect of this art, not the least the paper upon which signs are written, is of utmost importance. The paper is made from vegetable fibres such as bark residues that are soaked in water, joined together and then the water is removed to create sheets of paper. The result is an irregular surface where fibres are randomly woven together in all sorts of different directions. On this paper, Heian calligraphy works with two different techniques: either by stratifying the paper and

FIGURE 6.8 

Feeling-book.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

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Paperscape. Heian period 12th Century. Originally inherited in Kunoji Temple, now owned privately. Wikimedia Commons.

FIGURE 6.9 

creating directions and orientation by introducing the calligraphic characters in a definite order, columns from top to bottom and from right to left. Or by increasing the already irregular surface by adding more material to it, without referring to any simplified notion of linguistic or visual representation (Figure 6.9) The result is the fantastical ‘paperscapes’ that underlie Heian calligraphic poetics: trails of dark ink run over lavenders, greens, yellows, and reds that pool and stream, dotted with showers of gold and silver – all of which seems to anticipate or prefigure poems that sing of celestial and terrestrial movements: petals flutter, rivers flow, autumn leaves scatter, bugs chirp and susurrate, lovers meet and part, moons wax and wane. But this resonance between the poetic ‘naturescape’ and the paperscape does not belong to the realm of representation: those scattered flecks of colour are only like petals, leaves, snowflakes in so far that they betray an analogous motility and play of variation. (Lamarre 2002:150–151) Some of the children’s books reminded us of such “paperscapes” and the study of this tradition of calligraphy made it possible for us to understand and value children’s, at first sight, slightly “odd” books differently. But the children also told stories in their books. Wonderful and amazing stories that sometimes were quite difficult for adults to understand. At least at first sight. But by looking and listening closer very often we would understand the context and the meaning that brought about children’s varying books. The format of the book took different shapes depending upon what in the world interested the children at a particular time. Again, and in retrospect, the space, time and materials offered to children in these initial gestures of adults’ contempla(c)tion, seem to be of utmost importance for children’s engagement with the book both as a material object and as a process of mindful and symbolic meaning-making.

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 259

FIGURE 6.10 

Children’s books exposed.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

As educators and researchers continued observing and documenting children’s processes of making books, attention was paid to show children that we saw what was going on and that we valued it. One way of doing this was to carefully display children’s books on a shelf where children and adults could gather and pursue their explorations (Figure 6.10). After a longer period of observing, documenting and collectively analyzing these processes of fabricating books, it seemed clear to us that children had different and unusual conceptions of the book – they crafted the problem in an unexpected way. Children continuously brought for them important events and things in the world, experienced inside and outside the early childhood centres, into their books. Again, and when trying to understand how children crafted the problem, our references to Heian calligraphy became important. Heian calligraphy was described not only as a “cosmological rhythm”, but also and precisely as a question of “rhythms of compilation” that join the sensing writing body with stories in the world: What is the Heian but a cosmological rhythm? The hand brushes a series of characters in rhythms that are not precisely those of vocal rhythms (…) Verbal rhythms put words in motion, making them pivot and weave; while verbal images hover within and between poems. There are then rhythms of compilation that reprise and extend alternations and resonations of hand/ brush, voice, and eyes: cycles of seasons, congratulations, loves, departures, sorrows, names, styles. (Lamarre 2002:167)

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Again, in retrospect, and perhaps even more clearly in this poetic bookmaking, children seem engaged with both matter/perception and memory/mind, and, not the least, in encounters between the rhythm of events and things in the world and the rhythm of their own consciousnesses. The sensual and material fabrication of books seem, from the theoretical sources here used, when paired with the creation of symbolic stories from the world to have enhanced more personal, individual and collective, memories, and taken together this may have created a more profound relationship to the book. In any case, at the time of the project, it was the relationship between the fabrication of various material books and the important events and stories to tell that now stood in focus and that demanded that educators and researchers perform yet another gesture, that of creating enabling constraints: a response to children and a creation of conditions for children to pursue their explorations of the book.

An Ethical Gesture of Creating Enabling Constraints: Response to Children in the Project The Book As stated in Chapter 4, adults have the ethical responsibility to respond to and responsibly care about and for children. One way of doing so is to depart from observation and analysis of children’s interests, formulation of questions and construction of problems, and create what Erin Manning with reference to designer Rei Kawakubo, calls “enabling constraints”: Modes of existence come into being through enabling constraints. They emerge out of a necessity that has a procedural tending. This necessity is enabling in the sense that it provokes new forms of process, but constrained in the sense that it occurs according to the limits of this or that singular junction. Each time a mode of existence comes into being, it does so ‘just this way,’ in direct accordance with how the constraint was enabling in this singular set of conditions. (Manning 2016:90) Yet another important minor gesture is, then, an ethical gesture of creating enabling constraints. Importantly, though, an ethical gesture of creating enabling constraints does not mean that you are conditioning any given event according to a predefined plan. It is a truly experimental and durational process where an attempt to respond to children can only be made experimentally and tentatively. But it may be done with more or less precision and with more or less awareness of the enabling and conditional potential created. As Manning states above, each mode of existence coming into being is singular, just as the conditions created, each time, are singular. As with the reversed formula where solutions come forward in proportion to sense, also conditions and

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 261

FIGURE 6.11 

Paper-room.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

modes of existence stand in proportion to each other. And it is precisely this proportional relation that needs to be focused when educators and researchers create a tentative response to children. As said, in the project The Book the analysis performed of children’s relations to and making of books indicated that the problem being crafted concerned the relation between variations of the material book and important symbolic events, things and stories in the world to tell. How then, to respond to such a crafting of the problem of the book? How to create enabling constraints that further enhance children’s ongoing sense-making and crafting of the problem and nevertheless tentatively give the process a potentially new direction? If it was the material variety of books created and the connection between these and symbolic stories in the world that children explored, perhaps we needed to re-think the format of the book and propose a direction where the making, reading and writing of books goes outwards and into the world? This is how the idea of offering children a paper-room came about (Figure 6.11). The paper-room was carefully prepared through emptying a room and covering all surfaces therewithin in large sheets of white paper. Black ink and paintbrushes were placed at different places in the room, and the entrance was covered with a black curtain (Figure 6.12).

262  The Creative Contribution

FIGURE 6.12 

Black ink and paintbrushes.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

The children were asked to wait until the next day before entering the room and this little gesture already created an increasing suspension and tension: what could possibly be going on behind the black curtain? Three girls aged five were invited to the room the following day. At first, they were hesitating and asking what they should do in the room, and they were then encouraged to go around and explore the room for a little while. This is yet another important little gesture that slows down the process a bit: the girls were given time to discover the context and the suggestion offered to them. Quite quickly the girls discovered the black ink and the paintbrushes, and then they set to work. Figures were

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 263

FIGURE 6.13 

The story and the signs unfold I.

starting to take shape on the walls and on the floor. The story of two princesses, each with a dog, both pregnant and one sick in chickenpox, started to grow on the walls and on the floor (Figures 6.13, 6.14, 6.15, 6.16). Sometimes the story was acted in real-time giving rise to new events and signs, and sometimes it was the signs that gave rise to a new turn in the story. The girls stayed in the room for almost two hours, working and playing non-stop.

FIGURE 6.14 

The story and the signs unfold II.

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FIGURE 6.15 

The story and the signs unfold III.

FIGURE 6.16 

The story and the signs unfold IV.

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 265

A Political Gesture of Engaging in Composite Rhythm: Adapting to Children’s Rhythm in the Project The Book As seen above, not only may reading and writing be about the encounter of different rhythms in us and in the world, but there are also particular rhythms at stake in children’s and adults’ respective processes. As seen above too, adults try to adapt to children’s rhythm, but also to engage a common rhythm, for instance through slowing the process down and through giving the children time to carefully explore the offers, suggestions and provocations. In that sense, and with reference to rhythm as a musical concept and practice, children and teachers engage in “composite rhythm”: an overall, uninterrupted and summoning rhythm of all involved (Wittlich 1977; Yeston 1976).4 As earlier stated, time is part of a political dimension in education and, as with the notion of pedagogical tact, educator’s timing and adaptation to children’s rhythm is one of the conditions for children’s potential freedom. If paying attention to this, educators’ and children’s rhythms may be joined more closely in an overall durational rhythmic process. The minor gesture at stake here, then, is a political gesture of engaging in composite rhythm. This gesture is very concretely, and quite literally, a question of stepping in and stepping out of children’s processes. This must be done with the greatest attention paid to children’s rhythms and the difference and similarities between these and adult’s rhythms. It is very much about waiting, being patient, hesitating, to avoid crushing children’s often more subtle initiatives. But is also very much about giving children time. In the project The Book and after the girls had completed their story in the paper-room, all the other children in the class were invited into the room. This gave time to the girls to reflect upon and talk to their friends about what they had done. And it also gave their friends the time and opportunity to enter and become part of the process. But time was given also to adults to think about, discuss and analyze what had happened, and to decide how and when to intervene again. In one sense, we are back at the beginning here and in the act of listening and preparing for the creation of yet other and new enabling constraints. But also, and importantly, the gesture of acting in rhythm with children and with the literacy event itself, here concerned to give time to the girls to return to and revisit the room. Even though it may have been possible to continue a process that very same day, or to lance yet a new and different activity, educators and researchers chose to wait until the next day to invite the girls back to the room and to propose a new direction departing from the event the day before. The next day, the girls were invited to re-visit the room and their story and to “pick up” the words that they found most interesting in their story to then write these down. This engagement with the material room and the individual and collective memories of the event, the signs and the story created the day before, seemed to spur and motivate the children to pursue their reading and writing.

266  The Creative Contribution

FIGURE 6.17 

Written words picked up in the Paper-room I.

The words chosen all pertained to the story and the most frequently written and drawn ones were “castle”, “princess” and “dog” (“slott”, “prinsessa” and “hund” in Swedish) (Figures 6.17 and 6.18). Yet a couple of days later, the children were invited to sit down and talk about what they had experienced in the room – again a small gesture of giving time to children and trying to adapt to their rhythm. They were asked about their

FIGURE 6.18 

Written words picked up in the Paper-room II (in a row).

Photo: Ebba Theorell.

Aesthetics, Ethics & Politics in Early Childhood Education & Care 267

sensations in the paper-room. Amazingly, and perhaps testifying to how duration when allowed to enter educational experiences and events provokes creation and mobility of (even an empty) space too, one of the girls responded: It was … fantastic! I felt, in there, it was like we were given things and that the room offered us a lot of things! Her friends agree.

Notes 1 An important part of this gesture of contempla(c)tion is that educators and researchers listen not only to children, but also to what others have to say about the topic under study. Educators and researchers need to study the topic from a wide range of perspectives to find ways of analyzing what children do and say that seem close to children’s expressions. 2 Offers were also suggested to the youngest children (see further Olsson & Theorell 2014), but here I show how the observation of the youngest children led to initial offers to older children, and that when further analysed contributed to the initiation of the project The Book. 3 It is of course not a question of suggesting here that alphabetic signs should be abandoned, but rather that many and different ways of conceiving and working with these may also enhance the learning of conventional alphabetic signs. 4 This point of reference needs to be further developed. Here I am only hinting towards the definition of composite rhythm in music.

References Arendt, H. (1958/1998) The human condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Bergson, H. (1934/2007) The creative mind: An introduction to metaphysics. New York: Dover publications. Lamarre, T. (2002) Diagram, inscription, sensation, in B. Massumi, A shock to thought: Expression after Deleuze and Guattari. London and New York: Routledge. Manning, E. (2016) The minor gesture. Durham: Duke University Press. Olsson, L. M. and Theorell, E. (2014) Affective/effective reading and writing through real virtualities in digitized society, in M. N. Bloch, B. Swadener and G. S. Canella, Reconceptualizing early childhood care and education: Critical questions, new imaginairies & social activism - A reader. Oxford: Peter Lang. Sandvik, N. (2020) When the whole sky falls down: Minor gestures towards play out of place/time in toddler groups, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 21 (1) 33–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1463949118799917 Yeston, M. (1976) The stratification of musical rhythm. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wittlich, G. E. (1977) The stratification of musical rhythm by Maury Yeston, Journal of Music Theory, 21 (2), 355–373. https://www.jstor.org/stable/843495

EPILOGUE

Liberty (…) Books? Paper painted with any ink whatsoever. Study? A thing that in it-self is not distinct The distinction that distinguishes nothing and no thing. How much better, when the fog is there, To await Dom Sébastien, Whether he arrives or not! Grandeur is in poetry, goodness and dances… But what is best in the world? Children, Flowers, music, the moon and the sun, that fails Only when, instead of creating, they dry out. But the top of all that Is Jesus Christ Who knew nothing about finances And about whom it has not been clearly stated whether he had a library. (Pessoa, as cited in Tabucchi 1998, my translation)1 Fernando Pessoa’s poem summarizes the efforts that have been made in this book: to bring back some real some becoming and some freedom to educational experiences and events. But first, the poem brings about a certain distance to the initial ambition of writing a book “worthy of existence”. It shows, just like the children in the project The Book do, how books are one, and only one, of many potential and multiple expressions in and of the world. Secondly, the poem indicates that waiting and hesitating may be the most important thing. Perhaps even more important than conventional study. Hesitating,

Epilogue 269

not being sure of when, what or who may or may not arrive, might be a fruitful attitude to and in life, not the least educational life. In this book, attempts have been made to show that this does not imply doing nothing, but neither doing too much. Rather, these attempts show that a little bit of creative contempla(c)tion might be of as much use as the distinct, but instrumental and mechanical study proposed within the current abstract formalism that plagues education on all levels. Maybe the poem also indicates, like the Stoics, that between nothing and no thing there is something, something of Grandeur. Something that endures and that is real and yet both becoming and free. Like Children, Flowers, Music, the Moon and the Sun that need to be taken care of. Something that needs to be nurtured through creating conditions, enabling constraints, in time and space that will allow them all to pursue with and within their creative force, rather than subordinating them to an abstract formalism that dries them out in “a desertification of all modes of existence”. As Pessoa says, best of all are children, and it is with them that we need to join in composite rhythm to enhance some real, becoming and free educational experiences and events. Finally, and not the least in relation to the vitality of educational life that often occurs before intellectual knowledge, it is relieving and also a great moment of humour when the poem states that it is not proven and it is not based on any evidence that the one in Westernized history, beyond capitalism, and often representing the highest wisdom of all, actually possessed a library…

Note 1 LIBERTÉ (…) Les livres? Des papiers peints d’une encre quelconque. Étudier? Une chose en quoi n’est pas distincte La distinction distinguant rien et nulle chose. Combien il est meilleur, lorsque la brume est là, D’attendre Dom Sébastien, Qu’il vienne ou non ! Grandes la poésie, la bonté et les danses… Mais qu’y a-t-il de mieux au monde? Les enfants, Les fleurs, la musique, la lune et le soleil, qui faute Seulement quand, au lieu de créer, il dessèche. Mais le summum de tout cela C’est Jésus-Crist, Qui ne savait rien en finances Et dont il n’est pas dit qu’il avait une bibliothèque

Reference Pessoa, F. (1935/1998) Liberté, in A. Tabucchi La nostalgie, l’automobile et l’infini: lectures de Pessoa. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

INDEX

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; italics page numbers refer to figures; and page numbers followed by “n” refer to end notes. Abi-Rached, J. 4, 78 abstract formalism 5–6, 9–11, 14–15, 17, 19–22, 32–33, 40–44, 46, 54, 58–61, 63, 72–74, 94–95, 110, 113, 269 Abstract Formalist Education: Individual and Society in 46–49; Logos and World in 43–46; Past, Present and Future in 49–54 abstract time 104; see also time academic knowledge traditions 127, 127–129, 136, 149, 152, 161n27 adulthood 73–74, 77, 178 aesthetical gesture of contempla(c)tion 251–254, 252–259, 256–260 aesthetic attention 185 aesthetic illusion 43–46 aesthetics 19, 155, 157, 181–192, 239; as the relation between Logos and World 6–9 agogos 169 Agusta-Boularot, S. 166, 169 Alnervik, K. 180 Althusser, L. 140 analytical character 208–212 Ansell Pearson, K. 54n3, 73, 125 ‘Applied’ Educational Research and Scholarship 129, 134–136, 144, 150 Arendt, H. 3, 31–32, 43, 55n8, 251 Ars Paedagogica 165

Art as Experience (Dewey) 181 articolare 173 Atelierista 185–186, 216n7 Atkinson, P. 217n8 Bakthin, M. 143 Bauman, S. 52 Bauman, Z. 12 becoming 18, 20, 33, 54, 62–63, 73, 77–100, 108, 203; “alternative” conceptions of 110, 113; continuous 15, 90, 208; durational 89–90, 97; human being 106; as a scientific and metaphysical question 33–35, 203; pedagogue 225–240 Bergdahl, L. 169 Bergson, H. 21–22, 33–53, 54n3, 55 n5 –9 , 59–112, 114–116, 117n1, 117n3, 117n12, 118n13, 118n16, 118n20–118n21, 119–120n29, 119n26–119n27, 120n33–120n34, 125–126, 135, 152–156, 171–176, 178–179, 183, 185–186, 189–191, 194–212, 217n8–217n9, 217n13, 229–230, 234, 237–239, 243–244, 249–251, 256 Bergsonism (Deleuze) 54n3 Bernstein, B. 126–127, 134, 139–140, 158n1, 161n27 Blaise, M. 244n1

Index 271

The Book (project) 22, 240, 243–244, 250–267, 267n2, 268 Bourdieu, P. 140 Brahe, T. 136 brain 4, 32, 76, 78–80, 83, 91, 93–94, 96–98, 105, 118n13, 194 Bühler, C. 146 Caucig, F. 166 Cavazzoni, P. 238 childhood 73–74, 77, 145–150, 156–158, 172–173, 178–180, 190–193, 215–216 children’s rhythm 265–267 Clark, A. 201–203 clock-time 34, 38, 113, 119n28, 202; see also time collective analysis 234, 236 Colleges of Teacher Education 141 complexity 3, 10, 15, 20, 23, 80, 125, 134, 169, 173, 175, 203–204 Comte, A. 208 concrete duration 104–105; see also duration confronto 172 consciousness 33–34, 41–42, 51, 67, 71, 74–76, 78, 80, 85–87, 90, 92, 96, 102–103, 105, 109, 178, 185, 204, 260 constructivism 5, 240 contaminazione 173 contemplation 251 contextuality 15, 134, 203–204 continental philosophical paradigm 228 continuity of becoming 90, 208 converging differences 77–100, 144–151; see also differences and convergences Creative Evolution (Bergson) 38, 47, 60, 64, 70, 73–74, 76–77, 105, 107, 243 The Creative Mind (Bergson) 39, 63, 71, 93, 99, 109 critique 52–53 cultura 170–171 curriculum theory 139–143, 149–150 Dahlberg, G. 20, 145, 157, 190, 197, 199 Dalakoura, K. 169 Davies, B. 38 Debaise, D. 33 Decroly, J. O. 147 de Freitas, E. 38, 96, 99, 119n22 Deleuze, G. 20, 24n9, 37, 43–44, 50, 54n3, 59, 61, 117n1, 120n30, 153, 179, 217n19, 229–230, 237, 241–243, 249 Derrida, J. 143, 207 Descartes, R. 136 design-based research methodology 133

determinism 76, 105, 107–108, 111, 113 Dewey, J. 132, 143, 181, 195, 217n13– 217n14, 236, 239 differences and convergences 77–100, 144–151 Dilthey, W. 137, 140 dimension in pedagogy: aesthetics 181–183, 182–184, 185–192, 186–188; ethics 192–197; politics 197–203; see also pedagogy Diotima of Mantinea 166–169, 167, 216, 216n1, 251 Disciplines of Education/Sciences de l’Éducation 128, 133, 135–136, 138, 147, 151, 158–159n2 domains of pedagogy (practice, science, knowledge tradition) 174–177, 204, 206; see also practice; science; knowledge tradition doubleness 60–62, 155 Douris 169, 170 Du Bois, W. E. B. 207–208, 217n17 Dufourmantelle, A. 22, 214, 216, 251 duration 21, 33–34, 38, 40, 51–52, 60, 62, 65, 68–69, 71, 78, 83, 89–93, 95–106, 108–110, 112–113, 118n20, 173, 179, 185, 194, 199–202, 240, 267; see also time Durkheim, E. 140 early childhood education and care (ECEC) 7–8, 11, 20–22, 38, 52–53, 87, 129, 134, 136, 144–153, 159n2, 160n11, 160n13, 160n15, 166, 176–177, 180–181, 183, 185, 190–191, 196, 201– 202, 205–206, 209, 216n6, 217n11, 227–228, 236–237, 240, 243, 250 early childhood teacher education (ECTE) 52–53 ECEC see early childhood education and care (ECEC) ECTE see early childhood teacher education (ECTE) educational crisis 7, 12, 14, 17 Education as a ‘Generic’: competencies and standards 130, 134–135, 143, 150 educere 169 Einstein, A. 35 Eklund, A. 145 enabling constraints 260–265, 261–264, 269 encyclopaedic programme 95 Englund, T. 144, 159 epistemic justifications 5 Erikson, E. H. 148

272  Index

Erziehung 177 ethical fabulation 46–49, 61 ethical gesture of creating enabling constraints 250, 260–263, 261–264 ethics 112, 114, 136–137, 150, 157, 192–197, 214, 217n15; as the relation between Individual and Society 9–12 evolution of Life 51, 61, 64–67, 69–70, 72, 75, 77, 171–172, 176, 179, 204, 209, 225 evolvere 172 excessive creation 68, 72 Experimentell och intuitiv pedagogic (Hammer) 154 extension and tension 92–93 false problem 21, 31–43, 50, 54, 61–63, 249; see also problem Ferholt, B. 180 Ferrara, F. 38, 96, 99, 119n22 finalism 65, 66, 68, 172, 203 Fogelklou, E. 155 Foucault, M. 24n8, 36, 143, 208, 217n19 Francois, A. 62 freedom 1–2, 4, 6, 15, 33–34, 38–40, 58–116, 119n26, 125, 157, 197–202, 268; degree of 81, 100; and duration 100–113; and free will 101–103, 105–110, 119n26; moral 101; and poltics 197–203; problem of 113–116; sophistication and 76; see also politics free will 34, 51, 100–103, 105–110, 112, 114, 119n26 Friesen, N. 201, 217n16 Froebel, F. 145, 181–183, 182, 202 fundamentally elastic 85 Furlong, J. 126–136, 127, 138, 140, 142–152, 158, 158n1, 159n4–159n5, 160n6, 160n12 Galilei, G. 136 gentleness 214–216 German Educational Theory 128, 132–135, 138, 140, 151 German educational tradition 146, 158 Gesell, A. 148 gestures: aesthetical 251–254, 252–259, 256–260; ethical 250, 260–263, 261–264; minor 22, 217n8, 244, 249–251, 260, 265; political 214, 250, 265–267 Giamminuti, S. 199, 237, 244n1

grammar 174–175, 175; see also language Greene, M. 10 Grosz, E. 5, 34, 44, 59, 80, 85, 88, 98, 106–107, 112–114, 117n12, 118n21, 199–200 Guattari, F. 190, 241–243 Guerlac, S. 54n3 Habermas, J. 140 habit-memory 84–86, 94 Hammarström Lewenhagen, B. 160n16 Hammer, B. 137–138, 153–155, 177 Heian calligraphy 253, 257–259 Henri Bergson and Visual Culture (Atkinson) 217n8 Herbart, F. 137, 207 Herrlin, A. 137 hesitation 69, 71, 74, 204–208, 228 Homo Faber 34–35, 48, 54n3 Homo Loquax 48 Homo Sapiens 48 Hordern, J. 158n1 Houssaye, J. 175 The Human Condition (Arendt) 3, 31–32 humanity 76–77, 214 Hume, D. 136 idealism 44–45, 49, 81–82, 91, 137–138, 240 IELS see International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing Study (IELS) illusory retrospection 234 immediate consciousness 71, 109 immediate memory 92 individual and society 6, 9–12, 19, 21, 23n2, 40, 46–49, 51, 61, 97–99, 115, 194 instinct 35, 47–48, 70–71, 103, 207, 209; and intelligence 47–48, 70, 103, 209 instrumental mechanism 33, 76 integrale 173 integrated knowledge traditions 127, 131–135, 140, 144, 146–147, 149, 151–152, 158, 160n12 intelligence 32–33, 47–48, 50, 52–53, 61, 64, 69–71, 75–77, 103, 109, 113–115, 133, 138–139, 153–154, 209, 226 International Early Learning and Child Wellbeing Study (IELS) 8, 129 International Society of Learning Sciences 133 intuition 60–63, 71–72, 74–77, 92–93, 99–100, 108–110, 113–116, 117n1, 117n3, 119n27, 120n32, 120n35,

Index 273

125, 154–155, 176, 187, 194, 201, 207, 209–210, 212, 215, 225–227, 250–251, 253 Irigaray, L. 166–167, 216n2 Jaeger, W. 55n8, 167 Jankélévitch, V. 23n7, 38, 51, 54n3, 108 Johannesen, N. 206 joy 168, 169, 215, 216; see also love Kant, I. 46, 63, 91, 115–116, 136–137 Kawakubo, R. 260 Kelly, M. R. 39 Kepler, J. 136 Kilpatrick, W. H. 236–237 Kjellmark, M. 145, 161n18 knowing reality 52, 62–77, 176, 186 knowledge object of pedagogy 156, 212–216 knowledge tradition 14, 16–18, 20–21, 126–147, 127, 149, 151–152, 158, 158n2, 159n4–159n5, 160n12–160n13, 161n27, 174–177, 203, 206–208, 210, 212–213, 250 Köhler, E. 146–147 Kress, G. 241–243 Kristensson 159–160n6 Kroksmark, T. 159n5 Landqvist, J. 155 Langford, R. 196 Langmann, E. 169 language 34, 43, 52, 73, 76, 87–88, 90–91, 96, 98, 102, 104–105, 107, 112, 176–177, 180, 188–189, 208, 232, 238, 240–244; see also grammar Lapoujade, D. 24n9 Larsson, H. 155–156 la Salle, J. B. de 130 Lawlor, L. 35 Learning Sciences 133–134, 136 Lecusay, R. 180 Lefebvre, A. 54n3 L’Élan Vital 34–35, 55n4, 68 Levinas, E. 143 Liberal Education + Craft Knowledge 130–131, 134, 136 libertarianism 33, 58–59, 105–109, 111, 113, 199 liberty 80, 86, 178, 268–269 life and consciousness 74–75 The Line (project) 243 Linné, A. 159n5

lived time 13, 34, 50, 52–53, 54n3; see also time Locke, J. 136 Loevli, L. 5 logic of pedagogy 203–208, 227, 249, 250; see also pedagogy Logos and World 6–9, 19, 21, 40, 43–46, 96–97, 181, 183, 185 Lombard, J. 37, 39, 98, 111–112 Lombard, Y. 97 long time 5, 24n8, 68, 97, 132, 136, 171, 213, 256; see also time love 41, 103, 166–169, 215, 216, 216n2; see also joy Lundgren, U. P. 142 The Magic of Language (Dahlberg and Olsson) 240–244 Making learning visible: Children as individual and group learners (Project Zero & Reggio Children) 194–195 Malaguzzi, L. 9, 157, 173–174, 179, 193–194, 198–199, 204, 211 Manning, E. 22, 24n8, 227, 243, 249–251, 260 matrice 173 Matter and Life 68 Matter and memory (Bergson) 39, 44–45, 59, 77–79, 81, 83, 86, 92, 100, 103, 105, 107, 118–119n21, 244 matter and mind 44, 89, 93, 96, 99–100, 118–119n21, 118n16, 125, 153, 183, 185 Mead, G. H. 143 Meirieu, P. 195, 205 Melo, D. 37–38, 111–112 memory: habit 84–86, 94; immediate 92; personal 84, 95, 190; representative 84, 86, 95, 244, 256 Merewether, J. 244n1 metaphysical problems 6, 33, 35, 36, 39, 45, 54n3, 55n7, 64, 91, 92, 94, 98, 113, 126, 136, 137, 152, 158, 168, 179, 196, 203, 204, 209, 210, 212; see also problem metaphysics 34, 39, 43, 78, 92, 102, 118n20, 119n26, 125–126, 136, 152–153, 172–173 methodology of pedagogy 21, 208–212, 227, 250; critical-creative methodology 61–62, 65; open and closed methodology 60–61, 197, 209; see also pedagogy minor gestures 22, 217n8, 244, 249–251, 260, 265

274  Index

minor methods 22, 227–240, 242–243, 249–250 Moberg, E. 145 Moberg, M. 145 Mollenhauer, K. 207 Montessori, M. 146 morality 36, 51, 60, 115, 197, 204 Mossé-Bastide, R. M. 37, 39, 94, 98, 111–112 Moss, P. 13, 20, 197 Moten, F. 208 movement 35, 38, 42, 50, 64–65, 67–70, 72, 73, 77, 79–82, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91–96, 100, 104, 107, 111, 112, 119n21, 119n27, 119n28, 130, 145, 168, 178, 180, 185, 190–191, 211, 214 multimodality 242 Myrdal, A. 147 The Name (project) 243 nervous system 79–80 Networked professional knowledge 131, 136, 144 neuro-life 77–100 neuromania 8, 78 neuroscience 3–4, 9, 33, 93 The ‘New Science’ of Education 129, 133–135, 143, 150 Nilsson, M. 180 nodo 173 The ‘Normal’ College Tradition of Teacher Education 130, 134–135, 141, 148 Notre Dame 49, 97 OECD 8, 129, 134 olistico 173 open and closed methodology 60–61, 197, 209 organico 173 Orr, D. 203 orthodox thinking 229, 230, 237–239 Osguthorpe, R. 201, 217n16 Pädagogik 16, 128, 160n12 Paedagoga 166 Paedagogus 165 Paidagogikè Téchne 165 Paidagogos 165 paideia ( Jaeger) 55n8, 170–171, 192 pais 169 paper-room 261, 261, 265–267, 266 past, present and future 12–14, 19, 21, 24n8, 40, 49–54, 89, 101, 102, 197; see also time Pearson, A. 38

Pearson, K. A. 37 pedagogical documentation 22, 202, 227–228, 233–237, 242 Pedagògija (Latvia) 131–133, 135, 140, 160n12 pedagogy 165–166; aesthetic dimension 181–183, 182–184, 185–192, 186–188; ethical dimension 192–197; gentleness 214–216; grammar of 174–175, 175; hesitant 204–205, 207, 213, 227, 250; knowledge-tradition 213; of listening 228–229; logic of 203–208; methodology of 208–212; phenomena of 177–180; political dimension 197–203; practice 213; scholé 2, 113, 201, 212–216; scientific study 213 perception 44–45, 78, 80–86, 88–92, 96–100, 103, 105, 111, 114, 118n20, 189 Pessoa, F. 268–269 Pestalozzi, J. H. 145, 181 Peters, M. A. 5, 13 phenomena of pedagogy 177–180, 208; see also pedagogy philosophy 15–16, 18–19, 21–22, 24n9, 34–37, 39, 44, 51–52, 54n3, 55n8, 59–64, 91, 115–116, 117n1, 125–128, 132, 135–137, 143, 145, 147, 149–158, 181–182, 241 philosophy-in-use 132 phonics approach 241 Piaget, J. 147–148 PISA see Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Pitts, A. J. 37 Plato 166–167 play and playfulness 180 political gesture of engaging in composite rhythm 214, 250, 265–267 political retrotopication 49–54 politics 5–6, 12, 19–20, 54n3, 142, 197–203, 214; as the relation between Past, Present and Future 12–14 postmodern paradigm 228 practical knowledge traditions 127, 130–131 practice 16, 174–177, 206 Practitioner enquiry/action research 132, 134–135, 144 pragmatic paradigm 228 presentism 90, 113, 119n26 problem: false 21, 31–43, 50, 54, 61–63, 249; pedagogical 1–19; pedagogicalaesthetical 6–9; pedagogicaleducational 14–18; pedagogical-ethical

Index 275

9–12; pedagogical-political 12–14; see also freedom; metaphysical problems profound cause 68, 72, 203 progettazione 237–238, 244n1 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 129, 142, 160n12 project-oriented approach 237 project-work 22, 157, 227–228, 236–240, 242–243, 244n1, 250 Provenzo, E. F. 181–183 psychological determinism 105 psychophysics 41, 136, 152–153 qualificare 173 qualitative and quantitative measure 40–43 randomized control trials (RCTs) 129, 133, 143, 150 RCTs see randomized control trials (RCTs) real 2–3, 15, 33, 39, 43–44, 49, 51, 62–64, 72; as a scientific and metaphysical question 33–35 realism 44–45, 49, 81–82, 91, 118n20, 240 Reggio Emilia 22, 149, 156–158, 171–174, 176, 178, 185–187, 190–195, 198–202, 204, 211–212, 227–228, 237–238 relationality 15, 49, 98, 134, 173, 194, 196, 203–204 religion 51, 60, 197, 204 representative memory 84, 86, 95, 244, 256 Research Informed Clinical Practice 132, 134–135, 144 retrospective illusion 51, 101 Retrotopia (Bauman) 12, 52 retrotopication see political retrotopication ricercar 172 ri-conoscere 173 Rinaldi, C. 176, 216n5, 228–229, 234 Roberts, P. 38, 110, 201 Rose, N. 4, 78 Rousseau, J. -J. 145 Roy, K. 37–38, 72, 74, 97, 240 Russell, B. 35 Saeverot, H. 38, 110, 201 Säfström, C. A. 5, 159n5 Samuelsson, I. P. 145 Sandels, S. 145 Sandvik, N. 176 Schleiermacher, F. 137, 140 scholé 2, 113, 201, 212–216

science 16, 19, 34–35, 37, 43, 51, 52, 63–64, 70, 73, 93, 115, 116, 125–126, 136–139, 155–156, 175–176, 213; and philosophy 21, 34, 51, 52, 125–126 scientific study of education 16, 21; ECEC 144–152; knowledge-traditions 126–135, 127; Pedagogik/Pedagogy 135–144, 152–156; science and philosophy 125–126 self-creation 66–67 semantics of pedagogy 156–158, 208, 212 Sinclair, M. 38, 107, 118n20–118n21, 119n26, 119n28, 120n33 SMOOTH project 217n11, 232, 235–236 society and individual 6, 9–12, 19, 21, 23n2, 40, 46–49, 51, 61, 97–99, 115, 194 Sociology Hesitant (Du Bois) 207–208 Socrates 166–167, 167, 168–169, 216n2 sophistication 76 sperimentare 172 Stengers, I. 33 stretched time 202; see also time Stukát, K. -G. 148 support-science 137–139 Sweden 7, 10, 14, 16, 21, 135–151, 159n4–159n5, 160n7, 160n12 synthetical character 208–212 Symposium (Plato) 166–167 Tallberg Broman, I. 145, 147, 150 teaching 2, 8, 10, 58, 94–97, 110, 115, 130–131, 134, 138, 140–144, 149, 151, 167, 168, 176–178, 180, 190, 192, 202, 203, 213, 216, 234, 237, 238, 249 tenderness 38, 110, 201, 214 Theorell, E. 183, 185, 216n6, 243 theory of meaning 230 Time and Free Will (Bergson) 41, 102–103 time: clock-time 34, 38, 113, 119n28, 202; and duration 38, 65, 68, 89–93, 95, 98, 101, 104, 110, 179, 194, 197, 199–200, 227; evolutionary 64–65, 68–70, 72, 77, 108, 193–194, 225; and freedom 108, 112, 197, 200–202; and illusory retrospection 234; lived 13, 34, 50, 52–53, 54n3; long 5, 24n8, 68, 97, 132, 136, 171, 213, 256; organic 104, 113; and perception 41, 44–45; and politics 54n3, 197, 201; and profound and superficial selves 71–72, 107–108, 111; stretched 202 Trapp, E. C. 16 The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (Bergson) 36, 38, 47, 59–60, 114, 197

276  Index

Uggla, B. K. 159–160n6 uncertainty 2, 119n26, 168, 197, 202, 204–207, 212 unorthodox curriculum 237 upbringing 154, 161n19, 174, 177–180, 190, 192, 203 Vecchi, V. 185–186, 188–190, 238 verificare 172 Villani, A. 20, 24n9 Vygotsky, L. 132, 143, 228

Westmoreland, M. W. 37 Whitty, G. 126–136, 127, 138, 140, 142–152, 158, 158n1, 159n4–159n5, 160n6, 160n12 whole language approach 241 words of pedagogy 165–174, 167, 170 Worms, F. 34–35, 38–39, 60, 86, 118n21, 119n26–119n27 Zanfi, C. 63, 96