ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSE
POSITION PAPER
A MANIFESTO FOR EDUCATION (GERT BIESTA)
JENALYN RAMIREZ
JANUARY 23, 2020
1.Situation/Issue
The manifesto was an attempt to respond to a number of
issues concerning education, both in the field of educational
research and in the wider socio-political environment. This is
the text of that manifesto followed by two commentaries in
which the authors try to highlight some of the reasons that
have led to the writing of the manifesto, and in which an
attempt is made to situate the manifesto in a number of
discussions and debates.
2. Argument/ Claim/ Assertion
The Interest of Education, Education in the Tension between
‘What is’ and ‘what is not’ Rather than thinking of education
in temporal terms, Dissensus, Subjectivity and History,
Theoretical Resources and the Question of Educational Theory ,
Theorizing Education Educationally, Standing up for Education.
3. Supports/ Evidences/ Explanation / Reference
To express an interest in freedom and, more specifically,
an interest in the freedom of the other: the freedom of
the child, the freedom of the pupil, the freedom of the
student.
Education under the aegis of ‘what is’ becomes a form of
adaptation. This can either be adaptation to the ‘what
is’ of society, in which case education becomes
socialization, or it can be adaptation to the ‘what is’
of the individual child or student, thus starting from
such ‘facts’ as the gifted child, the child with
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the student
with learning difficulties, and so on.
To locate education in the tension between ‘what is’ and
‘what is not’ also has implications for the theoretical
resources that can be brought to bear upon education.
The challenge is to develop forms of theory and
theorizing that have freedom as their interest and
reference point. Such forms do not operate in the domain
of the cognitive – where theory would tie education to
‘what is’ – nor in the domain of the normative – where
theory would tie education to ‘what is not’.
4. Counter Argument/ Counter Claim
Such speech is not entirely easy because it requires a
double gesture. The point is that if it was perfectly clear
what education ‘is’ and what it is ‘about’, then it would be
quite easy to speak for education, as most of the work had
already been done by ‘education’ itself.
5. Supports/ Evidences/ Explanation / Reference
Tying up education with the idea of freedom – a freedom
that is ‘difficult’ because it is connected, related – we are
trying to articulate the educational interest as an interest
in something that also cannot be pinned down, that cannot be
captured, and that, in that sense, also cannot be defined.
Both strategies (populism and idealism) seem to miss
something that matters educationally – or, to put it in more
careful terms, that might matter educationally and that, so we
believe, should matter educationally. While populism expects
too little from education – and thus can blame those who
expect a little more, those who complicate education –
idealism expects too much from education – and thus can blame
those who expect too little from it, those who tie education
too quickly to the existing state of affairs.
‘Freedom’ then signifies an ‘excess’; that is, it
signifies what cannot be captured if one is either a serious
populist or a serious idealist, but may matter nonetheless,
and may matter educationally.
6. My Stand/ Claim
I will go with the claim, simply because claims of this
manifesto is well detailed with specific and many evidences
which are all visible and observable. Unlike the counterclaim,
seems to miss something educationally.
7. My Supports/ Evidences/ Explanation / Reference
We can find many references to it throughout the history
of educational thought and educational practice. We can hear
its echo in such notions as emancipation, enlightenment and
liberal education, and we can find its promise in critical
education, empowering education, and so on. While in this
regard freedom may have the power to keep education away from
what is, from the reality of the here and now, and keeps the
possibility of excess or transcendence open, there is a danger
that in such notions as emancipation, enlightenment,
liberation and empowerment freedom is always projected into
the future, as something that needs time, as something that
may arrive, but that is always to arrive later.
References: http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.540
