The Struggle to Love: Pedagogical Eros and the Gift of Transformation

Why does anyone become a teacher, and why a student? Education in its contemporary form has evolved into a subsystem of society in which professional ‘teachers/ educators’ are confronted with an ever‐changing group of people called ‘pupils/students’; and the individuals in both groups now have to deal with this institutionalised confrontation. Neither one nor the other decision—to become a teacher or to become a student—seems to have much to do with a specific other person, and it certainly does not have much to do with the actual person(s) that one is related to by becoming a teacher or by becoming a student in a specific institution. However, if pedagogical relations were as depersonalised as suggested, why is it that teachers as well as students hold very different relations to different students and teachers—relations that are more or less ‘deep’, ‘affectionate’, ‘successful’? And how are we to perceive education outside of formally institutionalised contexts (or those special relations that occur even within formalised contexts but transcend them)? Is there another type of pedagogical relationship? And what would be the reasons for entering into a pedagogical relationship other than becoming and being made a part of a subsystem of society? Why do two people gravitate towards each other, freely recognising each other as teacher and student? Attempting to answer those questions, the following paper revisits some historic positions, being conscious that those answers are also part of the answer to a much greater question: What is education?     

Dōgen's Time and the Flow of Otiosity—Exiting the Educational Rat Race

Based upon a discussion of the concept education and its temporal structures, this paper attempts to show how education could be seen as contributing to different forms of social and individual temporal crises prevalent in modern societies since at least the end of the 19th century. In contemplating those relations, and based on historical and intercultural explorations into Classic European and Japanese thinking, the paper aspires to open up a new horizon for a systematic revaluation and conceptual reinvention of education.     

Restricted Liberty,Parental Choice and Homeschooling

In this paper the authors carefully study the problem of liberty as it applies to school choice, and whether there ought to be restricted liberty in the case of homeschooling. They examine three prominent concerns that might be brought against homeschooling, viz., that it aggravates social inequality, worsens societal conflict and works against the best interests of children. To examine the tensions that occur between parental liberty, children's interests, and state oversight, the authors consider the case of homeschooling in the Dutch context.