Toward a “thoughtful lightness”: Education in viral times

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our way of life temporarily and perhaps forever. As such, how educators respond to the contemporary situation is not without consequence. Inspired by the writings of Giorgio Agamben, this article argues that, while the way forward is not unambiguous, the Covid-19 situation offers educators an unanticipated opportunity to pause; to reconsider our aspirations; and, ultimately, to reclaim education as an ethico-political activity. To embrace this opportunity requires the interpretation of our current situation as a real state of exception in which the neoliberal order and its utopian-learning culture can be suspended. In a state of suspension, one can begin thinking afresh about the Covid-19 pandemic and what reactions to and conversations about the event reveal about (more desirable) ways of learning and living together in schools and society.

Holes, Gaps, and Openings: Crafting Collective Climate Pedagogies with/in Complex Common Worlds

“…How might we think holes as life-making? How might getting to know holes as collapse or strife that stretches beyond our own individual experience and instead orients toward becoming implicated shift how we might learn to respond with climate pedagogies-especially given the suspension-ridden holes of a global viral pandemic (Phelan & Hansen, 2021)? We want to take up Rooney, Blaise, and Royd's (2021) question: "What can the practice of 'muddying' or being in a 'muddle' offer as a pedagogical approach in early years environmental education?"…”