some random/ provocative thoughts on education & pedagogy, presented at M&C seminar at LSE 5th December 2012. For the slides to make sense, here's the talk "script"/ transcript... http://www.slideshare.net/sonjaloren/pedagogy-social-good-15591645

1. Pedagogy as an undisputed
social tool?
Some (provocative & not entirely meant)
thoughts…
Script link: http://www.slideshare.net/sonjaloren/pedagogy-social-good-15591645

2. LSE Media&Comms seminar
• Abstract: “Few would deny that education is both an individual and a social good. However, the
nature and the implications of its undoubted benefits are hotly contested." (G.Lloyd in: New
Keywords, 2005). It seems that no thesis on pedagogy/ education, no modern theory dictionary entry
on the topic can fail to state from the outset that education is great. This is dogma. Education is an
important, noble and most basic human endeavour with the potential to cure all societal
ills, eradicate social inequality - and 'undoubtedly' beneficial. I would like to question the dogma, not
simply because of a personal tendency towards contrariness, but because of a faith in the
Heideggerian assertion that 'questioning is the piety of thinking', where 'thinking' is not that which
characterises pedagogy, but is done in philosophy. I will touch on this to some extent, but will above
all want to question the value of the word pedagogy, by way of critically assessing its use within the
field of Learning Technology.”
• Script link: http://www.slideshare.net/sonjaloren/pedagogy-social-good-
15591645

3. Some “thoughts” on pedagogy
• How ‘we’ use it
– Pretentiousness
• Theory & Practice
• Education as social good = philanthropic fad?
• What’s it got to do with Heidegger?

4. 1. Get others to do it for you
“If you have 3 minutes, would you do me a favour, and write down the
first thing that comes into your head when asked: “what is
pedagogy, how do you use the term in your research/ work/ life”.
Just vomit it into the email and press send. Anything, just a few
sentences, a small paragraph. Anything from the profound to the
profane… gobbledegook as welcome as a well-thought out definition.
More welcome, since a well-thought out definition, unless your brain
is a dictionary, isn’t really stormy.”

5. Answer 1
“It’s interfering with children.”
“”

6. Answer 2
“Here’s my pedagogical puke: I always think of this
book as it’s one I really enjoy looking at and am still
intrigued by: Paul Klee’s Pedagogical sketchbook –
illustrated step by step it takes you through the
meaning of the markings in his work in a very
scientific way, its bizarre! I always struggle with
how to pronounce it!”

8. Teaching…
“Paul Klee the painter could not help becoming a
teacher in the original meaning of the term. The word
‘to teach’ derives from the Gothic ‘taiku-sign (our word
token). It is the mission of the teacher to observe what
goes unnoticed by the multitude. He is an interpreter of
signs. When Walter Gropius developed the curriculum of
his German Bauhaus, he gave back to the word teacher
its basic significance.”

10. Without pompousness
“Each of the four divisions of the Sketchbook
has one key-sentence, strewn almost casually -
without the pompousness of a theorem -
among specific observations.”

12. Answer 3
“It means education but in my latest book one
author says the term actually applies to children's
learning and adult learning is andragogy or
something like that! I sometimes think its a word
that we use in learning technology when we
want to impress someone! I don't like it very
much in all honesty!”

13. Answer 4
“I try to avoid using the word because I'm still not
sure if it's pedagoggy or pedagodjy. I've yet to
compose a sentence that could not easily be recast
to use "teaching" instead. And I am slightly fearful
using it will draw a baying mob of semi-literate Sun
readers to string me up outside a Portsmouth
boozer.”

14. Answer 5
“I use pedagogy to mean "teaching, and facilitating learning".
And I probably extend that definition in use to mean
"teaching, and facilitating learning, effectively". I suppose
it really means "the study of teaching and learning" but I
seldom use it in that context. However I dislike the use of it
as a countable noun - I would never talk about "pedagogies"
when I mean ‘approaches’.”

15. EM Forster
“As long as learning is connected with earning, as
long as certain jobs can only be reached through
exams, so long must we take the examination
system seriously. If another ladder to employment
was contrived, much so-called education would
disappear, and no one be a penny the stupider.”
Aspects of the Novel, 1927

16. Agatha Christie
“Of course there’s a fashion in these things, just like there is in
clothes. (My dear, have you seen what Christian Dior is trying
to make us wear in the way of skirts?) Where was I? Oh
yes, Fashion. Well, there’s fashion in philanthropy too. It used
to be education in Gulbrandsen’s day. But that’s out of date
now. The State has stepped in. Everyone expects education
as a matter of right – and doesn’t think much of it when they
get it. Juvenile Delinquency – that’s what is the rage
nowadays…”
They do it with mirrors, 1952

17. What’s it to do with Heidegger?

18. Heidegger
“Whoever does not have the courage and perseverance of
thought required to become involved in Nietzsche’s own
writings, need not read anything about him either.”
(Nietzsche I, 1936)
“Aristotle was born, worked, and died. Now let’s turn to
his work.”
(according to Arendt or Gadamer, can’t quite remember where now)

19. Seneca
“We play games. We blunt our thinking with superfluous
problems, & such idle analyses don’t help us to live well, but at
the most they make us sound scholarly. Real wisdom is much
more accessible than academic wisdom, it would be so much
better if our education taught us common sense! But we
waste everything, and we waste our highest good, namely
philosophy, with superfluous questions. We are hopelessly
addicted to everything, and that includes an insatiable hunger
for scholarliness: we don’t learn for life, we learn for the sake
of the School.”
Latrunculis ludimus. In supervacuis subtilitasteritur: non faciunt bonos ista sed doctos. Apertior res
est sapere, immo simplicior: paucis <satis> est ad mentem bonam uti litteris, sed nos ut cetera in
supervacuum diffundimus, ita philosophiam ipsam. Quemadmodum omnium rerum, sic litterarum
quoque intemperantia laboramus: non vitae sed scholae discimus