Page 101 - Looking_after_school

3. Touchstones: pedagogical articulations

is another way of saying that school learning is a form of learning sui
generis, and stressing the importance of looking from within the school
to family and societal life instead of the other way around.

Is the teacher in service of both the student and of society?

What matters for the school also matters for the teacher. The teacher
has the responsibility for both reaching out to the students and for
disclosing the world through grammars. This double responsibil-
ity implies a double movement from the teacher: putting something
on the table and making students attentive to it. In other words: in a
book, on a blackboard, during a movie screening, or through exercise,
a teacher must make the world appear and make it possible for student
to learn how to relate to that which is shown. This means that students
at school can become interested in something that lies beyond their
immediate lifeworld. Because of this orientation towards the world,
the teacher cannot be in service of students and their needs, alone; the
teacher would then only be the coach of their lifeworld, taking away
the opportunity for students to leave their lifeworld behind. Inversely,
this also means that the teacher cannot be oriented solely on society.
The teacher cannot be concerned only with the subject matter. Some-
one who is only directed on content will most likely miss the connec-
tion with the lifeworld of the young people, which is precisely what is
needed in order to get them to leave it behind.

Are students more alike than different?

The school operates under the guise of freedom and equality. This is
not political freedom (from power or authority), juridical freedom (in
the form of rights), nor economic freedom (as freedom of choice), but
a pedagogical freedom: to not have a (natural or social) predestination
and to be able to determine one’s own destination through learning.
Similarly, equality in school should not be confused with societal
equality (to be or to make socially, economically, or culturally equal),
juridical equality (treating everybody equally before the law) or an
equality of opportunity or results (dealing with social and cultural
inequalities in view of equal chances or getting everyone across the

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