Rejuvenating and regenerating on-campus education. Why particular forms of pedagogical life matter

ABSTRACT

The pandemic implied an acceleration of the impending devastation of various forms of public pedagogical life attached to the campus, changing the ecology of study and affecting the sense-ability and response-ability of the university as an ‘association for/to study’ (‘universitas studii’). This contribution sketches two developments that play a role in this weakening of pedagogical life: the establishment and expansion of a hyper-modern learning factory and the creation of the figure of the independent learner. It is suggested that the rejuvenation and regeneration of pedagogical life can be supported by a critical pedagogy that cultivates the art of distinction in order to describe and indicate the distinctions that matter to various forms of pedagogical life and what they make happen. This is then exemplified through a brief discussion of the lecture and the seminar engendering ‘spoken science’. Finally, it is indicated how a rejuvenation and regeneration implicates students and scholars.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogical form
• on-campus education
• learning factory
• lecture
• critical pedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These thoughts rely on work that has been done largely together with Maarten Simons and with students in the last years. See e.g. (Simons 2020; Masschelein and Maarten 2021; Masschelein, Berghmans, and Simons 2022).

2. Larry Cuban on school reform and classroom practices: https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/schools-as-factories-metaphors-that-stick/.

3. As Papastephanou et al. (2022) writes, the modern dream of the infinite and limitless finds its summum in the digital, hence we could call this learning factory hypermodern.

4. See also: (Nóvoa and Lawn 2002; Kuhn and Sultana 2006; Wagenaar 2019).

5. Of which some forms, of course, could be (and have been) criticized for many reasons.

6. At once the one world and various worlds (see Ingold 2018).

7. i.e. those actually employed at Higher Education institutions and educational theorists and philosophers.

8. e.g. between the figures that take part, the practices included, the gestures and bodies involved, the (living) matter at stake, the generated climates and moods … .

9. I do not claim any originality here, in fact, such a critical pedagogy can build upon a lot of work that has been done and is done in history, anthropology and philosophy of education also today.

10. Related more to classroom teaching in schools: also (Todd 2021).

11. And we could add e.g. a seminar room or a lecture hall.

12. This questioning and subverting is not just a ‘feedback’ optimizing the process of the production of learning outcomes, it is not under firm control but can be very ‘annoying’- whereas the ‘programmed learning’ precisely tries to control the interpretation and the questions turning them in productive ‘errors’ or ‘feedback.’

13. This was what a commentator wrote about the practice of texting, that she replaced it by sending mini audio clips, which, she said, already imply more engagement than texting but less commitment than a regular phone conversation, and which she preferred because she remained in the ‘boss mode’ (cited in Lovink 2022, 82).

14. I borrow this title from Barthes (1991).

15. I borrow the reference from Tamboukou (2016).

16. The ‘Student manifesto on the future of Higher Education in Europe’ from the European Students’ Union is revealing in this respect. European Students Union (ESU) (2021).