Transformative Teaching: Restoring the teacher, under erasure

In the large and complex landscape of pedagogy, the focus seems to have turned away from the concept of teaching and towards a stronger emphasis on learning, probably supported by neo-liberal ideology. The teacher is presented more as part of the force of production than as an autonomous performer of a mandate given to him/her by society. He/she is supposed to supply knowledge that is considered useful to a society geared to production and consumption. During the past few decades, enlightenment as a legitimising concept for education has been challenged from different angles, both by a self-critique from within and from external forces. One angle of approach is the questioning of the relationship between the state and education, by way of a critique of modernity. Another approach comes from a critique of knowledge, which has lost most of its universal implications and is left with more pragmatic and utilitarian considerations. Into this landscape of lost legitimisation, I will make an attempt to visualise an impossible/possible position for teaching, featuring ancient, contemporary and phantom-like figures. I am suggesting the concept of transformation as an alternative to development or improvement, which I find to be concepts with a close link to modernity and its linearity. By a careful and conscious use of the word transformation, taking Derrida's intensified focus of language into account, a possible active position might be intimated in spite of the fundamental critique, which has been directed at pedagogy and its imperialistic implications from different angles.