The experience of strangeness in education: Camus,Jean-Baptiste Clamence and the little ease

When The Myth of Sisyphus describes those who live in the ‘rarefied air of the absurd’ (p. 86), Camus uses the word fidelity. This signals a recognition of both defeat and the demand for struggle. This suggests a humility. Education can be said to have this characteristic; it is constantly in service to the new and yet understands these come with limits. And these limits are overcome as education develops the mind to see differently and change the world we live in. This type of education has fidelity to the absurd because of its cognisance of both aspiration and failure: it is aware of its useful potential to help make sense of the world, and yet it understands this requires disjuncture from what has come before. It promises the Sisyphean climb and return. Education does this consciously and deliberately. Education, in some ways, is therefore absurd. Or at least, from time to time it finds itself in the rarefied air. If this is the case then how should practitioners interpret or care for the absurd experience and what exactly might this look like in educational contexts. This article chooses The Fall for the purpose of better understanding the experience of absurd anxiety in the context of education. It uses, as an original device, the imagery of the ‘little ease’ to explore this feeling and the forces underpinning it.     

Introduction: education,war and peace

Abstract

This editorial introduction to the special issue on education, war and peace proposes that the dynamics between education, war and peace have been insufficiently researched in the history of education but have become a focus of increasing attention. Education for war, education for peace, the impact of war on education, and representations of war and peace are particular aspects of this general theme that are developed in detail in the collection as a whole.     

Introduction: The idea of political education

This article considers the current context for renewed concern about 'political education' worldwide and in the UK. The concept 'political education' is analysed, as are normative and positive questions about the relationship between education and political outcomes. The article goes on to consider the history of and reasons for UK exceptionalism as regards this aspect of educational policy-explanations for British antipathy to political education are sought in aspects of British political institutions and political culture.     

Right-wing populism and education: Introduction to the special section

This introduction offers an overview of the concept of populism, the debates around its definitions and its relationship with democracy and the significance of attending to populist politics in the context of education. It also lays out the political contexts in which authors have engaged with education and populist politics in the UK, Brazil and Israel, and the ways in which they understand populist shifts in education. Detailing the two main conceptions of populism used by authors in the special section, namely, populism as ideology and populism as political logic, we discuss how authors understand the construction of ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, and the implications of the ‘antagonism’ between them in each case. Dividing the nine articles in the special section into three groups, we look at the ways in which right-wing populism has sought to (re)shape divisions based on race, religion and nationalities, among other things; how political and pedagogic practices are being (re)imagined to counter these divisions and populist moves; and the stakes of bringing the question of populism into education. We show how this special section has brought together different conversations and disciplinary perspectives on right-wing shifts in education, challenges to these and a potential way forward. Most importantly, we invite readers to think through the shifting role of education in democracy, as well as the divisions and hierarchies that are entailed in institutionalised education.     

浅论萨特和加缪的分歧

萨特和加缪都是存在主义大师。世界是荒诞的 ,是他们共同的哲学观。但由于他们对荒诞的具体看法不尽相同。因而面对荒诞他们的拯救之途也不同。加缪对之以“反抗” ,萨特却对之以“自由选择”。本文着重从哲学和文学创作上分析他们的分歧之处。