Philosophy of education in a new key: Cultivating a living philosophy of education to overcome coloniality and violence in African universities

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This article is a collective writing experiment undertaken by philosophers of education affiliated with the PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain). When asked to reflect on questions concerning the Philosophy of Education in a New Key in May 2020, it was unsurprising that the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and on education were foremost in our minds. We wanted to consider important philosophical and educational questions raised by the pandemic, while acknowledging that, first and foremost, it is a human tragedy. With nearly a million deaths reported worldwide to date, and with everyone effected in one way or another by Covid-19, there is a degree of discomfort, and a responsibility to be sensitive, in reflecting and writing about it academically. Members of this 'Covid Collective' come from various countries, with perspectives from Great Britain and Ireland well represented, and we see academic practice as a globally connected enterprise, especially since the digital revolution in academic publishing. The concerns raised in this article relate to but move beyond Covid-19, reflecting the impact of neoliberalism [and other political developments] on geopolitics with educational concerns as central to our focus.

Section: Marek Tesarmentioning

confidence: 96%

Philosophy of education in a new key: A ‘Covid Collective’ of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB)

Orchard

Gaydon²,

Williams

et al. 2020

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“…Such a term recognises the journey, and the commitment that we have to the different, other space of the university, which is presented as an ethical space within which we can exist. Waghid (2020) argues that:…”

Section: Towards the New Ethics Of Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethical academy? The university as an ethical system

Tesař

Peters

Jackson

2021

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Ethics, classroom and academy Universities may be seen as an evolving network of ethical systems that govern teaching, research, service, and administration. The university system, however, is changing; adding new rules, new ways of working, and new ideas to its repertoire of operations. Universities now comprise a spectacularly large body of regulations and policies, both internal and external, that cover issues from cheating, human subject research, academic integrity, research on animals, environmental ethics, and the ethics of sexual harassment. These interconnected ecological systems of ethics have not emerged in one rational process but rather reflect the ongoing historical and dynamic development of law and ethics in relation to the creation of new values. This has, of course, played out in a particular political and ideological environment, which has produced the university as a set of practices and beliefs, and a particular set of rationalities. The theories that we have traditionally employed, may be now put for questioning and examination (see our prior work Peters et al., 2018). An interesting body of work entitled Creating the Ethical Academy (Gallant, 2011) focused on cheating, the bending of admission rules, fudging research, and plagiarism, arguing that if we allow a corrupt Academy what hope is there for society? This collection focuses on two questions: Why does academic corruption occur, and what should we do about it? Gallant adopts a systems view, suggesting that corruption should be seen as part of a holistic approach rather than individual dysfunction. Similar approaches and questions have been raised in other kinds of learning institutions such as at the secondary school level. New technologies have made 'cutting' and 'pasting' easy and the Internet has exploded with problems based around student and faculty plagiarism and issues springing from the 'paradigm of the copy'. Quite recently other fields of ethics have sprung up on academic integrity (Bretag, 2016), originally based on the southern honour code (duty, pride, power, and self-esteem) in the eighteenth century, evolving into a more contemporary concept that distinguishes between students and faculty, focusing respectively on cheating and publishing ethics. The contemporary concept, challenged by technological disruption of academic writing, began to pick up steam in the 1990s with the work of McCabe (1992) and McCabe and Trevino (1993) on cheating and other forms of academic dishonesty. More recently we have witnessed paid anonymous services, that will allow students to receive a written work within 24 hours, via ghostwriters who could be your classmate or people living on the other side of the globe. Research ethics, while somewhat more established, has also undergone changes, with a greater emphasis on institutional indemnity. Universities now have a code of ethical conduct for research, teaching and evaluations involving human participants focused on 'risk of harm' to research participants, voluntary consent and ownership of inf...

“…The project Philosophy in a New Key has been taken up in 2020, in the time of pandemic, and created an environment within which scholars around the world have engaged with the ideas of Covid-19 and new normality through different lenses, a diverse prism (see Tesar, 2020). The contribution and engagement with this topic has thus far included various theoretical and geographical lenses (see for instance Kato, 2020;Jackson, 2020;Papastephanou, 2020;Hung, 2020;Waghid, 2020). In this paper, Jandri c et al have taken into account a tremendous collective power and energy to look at issues surrounding the intersection and interface of the environment and education.…”

Section: After the Environment And Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Philosophy of education in a new key: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Education and environment after the coronavirus

Jandrić

Jaldemark

Hurley

et al. 2020

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This paper explores relationships between environment and education after the Covid-19 pandemic through the lens of philosophy of education in a new key developed by Michael Peters and the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA). The paper is collectively written by 15 authors who responded to the question: Who remembers Greta Thunberg? Their answers are classified into four main themes and corresponding sections. The first section, 'As we bake the earth, let's try and bake it from scratch', gathers wider philosophical considerations about the intersection between environment, education, and the pandemic. The second section, 'Bump in the road or a catalyst for structural change?', looks more closely into issues pertaining to education. The third section, 'If you choose to fail us, we will never forgive you', focuses to Greta Thunberg's messages and their responses. The last section, 'Towards a new (educational) normal', explores future scenarios and develops recommendations for critical emancipatory action. The concluding part brings these insights together, showing that resulting synergy between the answers offers much more then the sum of articles' parts. With its ethos of collectivity, interconnectedness, and solidarity, philosophy of education in a new key is a crucial tool for development of post-pandemic (philosophy of) education.