A Phenomenological Investigation: Freedom and the Essence of the Educated Human Being SunInn Yun (Institute of Education – London) In the perennial discussion of the aims of education there has been both celebration of and contestation over the idea of freedom. Celebration is manifested in many of the eulogies to empowerment and choice that are promoted by the agendas of neoliberal policy. But it is also there, sometimes in contrasting ways, in the more considered ideals expressed in progressivism and liberal education. They may disagree about what freedom consists in: the advocate of liberal education will perhaps see it as a state to be achieved through education, through which one can become rationally autonomous; the progressive will emphasize rather its importance as a starting-point for education. Yet both share commitment to it as some kind of substantive ideal. Against this background, there is also some criticism. A number of authors have argued against the understanding of education in terms of any fixed ideals on the grounds that the aims of education cannot be settled or that there is a danger of their becoming ossified.i Others have found fault more specifically with the idea of freedom itself, seeing its celebration in the above ways as somewhat naïve: such ideals fail to realize the extent to which we are subjectivated by the socio-historical circumstances and discourse regimes in which we find ourselves. Certainly there seems a danger that the reiteration of the ideals runs the risk of becoming hollow, as if we were using terms that had no real purchase on our lives. In spite of the questioning, however, educational discourse continues to make vague reference to them, and freedom in particular continues to be vigorously defended as an educational ideal. What is required in response to this is a new discourse in education, whose sense of purpose is not reducible to the fixing of educational aims. At this juncture, phenomenology provides us with a way forward. It provides a way of questioning and thinking that can provide a more rigorous assessment of both those substantive ideals of freedom mentioned at the start and its reiteration. As Charles Guignon has put it, phenomenology brackets uncritical assumptions in the study of the human species in such a way as to be sceptical towards supposedly value-free ‘facts’ about human nature and thus challenges empirical generalizations arising in the study of humankind.ii Phenomenology in this respect is particularly timely with regard to the possibility of a new discourse in education. In particular, it can lead to a different conceptualization of freedom, different both from its idealization in substantive statements of educational aims. This is not, of course, to dispense with freedom. At a time when the direct focus on freedom has been called into question by some, but where it is still placed at the centre of educational discourse, the question should be how, other than as an educational ideal, freedom can appear in education. With reference especially to Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Nancy, my discussion will attempt to raise the question of freedom in new ways. iii In particular, it will characterize freedom not as something one has, but rather as something that occurs. This will be shown to be of pervasive importance phenomenologically, as well as of critical importance for our understanding of and practice in education. My project is a phenomenological investigation regarding freedom and education. To begin with, three issues are to be addressed. First of all, the title of this project draws attention immediately to the old-fashioned and problematic idea of essence, which is on the whole contested in phenomenology practice. But essence in this project, rather than what is associated with more traditional philosophy, refers to Heidegger’s notion of the way of thinking. The Heideggerian philosopher and translator of Heidegger’s essay, The Question Concerning Technology, William Lovitt, summarizes Heidegger’s notion of essence as follows: “Essence (Wesen) does not simply mean what something is, but that it means, further, the way in which something pursues its course, the way in which it remains through time as what it is.” iv Essence, in other words, is not the fundamental substance of a thing to be named as what it is, but a way of thinking of a thing, which reveals and endures to appear as it is. In this project, essence refers to a way of thinking of the idea of education, of the educated being in relation to human freedom. Second, my project attempts to investigate the idea of freedom in Heidegger. It starts with Heidegger’s questioning of being and truth, and this is shown to be closely connected to the phenomenology of freedom: The essence of Freedom is originally not connected with the will or even with the causality of human willing. Freedom governs the open in the sense of the cleared and lighted up, i.e., of the revealed. It is to the happening of revealing, i.e., of truth, that freedom stands in the closest and most intimate kinship. All revealing belongs within a harbouring and a concealing. But that which frees – the mystery – is concealed and always concealing itself. All revealing comes out of the open, goes into the open, and brings into the open. The freedom of the open consists neither in unfettered arbitrariness nor in the constraint of mere laws. Freedom is that which conceals in a way that opens to light, in whose clearing there shimmers that veil that covers what comes to presence of all truth and lets the veil appear as what veils. Freedom is the realm of the destining that at any given time starts a revealing upon its way.v In this, Heidegger claims that freedom is not a matter of free will or of a system. This kind of understanding of freedom has affected and contributed to the formulation of an idea of education that I have discussed above as an ideal and in terms of the will of the autonomous being. Heidegger shows that the phenomenon of freedom is a kind of revealing. Revealing is a phenomenon in which a thing appears as it is. Revealing is close to the Greek notion of truth as aletheia, as the unconcealed. Unconcealing is not simply brought about by a kind of human free will, and nor does it refer to a kind of ideal stage that human beings should reach at some point. Heidegger attaches the notion of revealing to mystery, which emphasizes the nature of concealing and the veil. Freedom is revealing, and such revealing contains concealing at the same time. In the light of this, I want to investigate the Heideggerian notion of freedom and its implications for education. Lastly, the idea of freedom in this project is approached in terms of an ‘as’ relation. In the prevailing philosophical discourse concerning freedom, it is often conceived in terms of ‘freedom of’: a genitive and adjectival condition that is attached to the human being. Frequently this is accompanied by such catch-phrases as ‘freedom of the oppressed’, ‘freedom of the child’, ‘free choice’ and so on. In spite of the importance of these themes, the expressions reveal a particular way of thinking of freedom - as something to be owned. The freedom of the oppressed or of the child, for instance, address the problem in terms of an absence of freedom. In this kind of thinking, freedom is idealized and celebrated as something to be achieved. This then delimits the focus of the question in terms of the prospective ‘owner’ of the freedom. Freedom in this way has been purchased too soon to be celebrated or praised. As a result, regardless of the countless references to freedom, few questions or doubts are raised about freedom itself. Instead there is a tendency in Western philosophy to reside somewhat complacently with the idea of freedom as free will or as some kind of ideal. I attempt, in this project, to take a stance on the idea of freedom as a phenomenon that appears in education ‘as’ something, rather than in terms of a genitive condition of human being as an outcome of education. To show the phenomenon of freedom in education, my project addresses the five themes of freedom as possibility, as movement, as a leap, as language, and as technology. In the light of such a phenomenology, education comes to be seen not as the pursuit of an ideal for the benefit of another, but as an action in which the play of freedom reveals and conceals. In this way, I shall discuss the nature of education as freedom in action, through the human being is defined, refined, and renewed. i See Hardarson, A. (2012). “Why the Aims of Education Cannot Be Settled”, Journal of Philosophy of Education 46(2): pp. 223-235.; Standish, P. (1999). Education Without Aims?. In R. Marples (Ed.), The Aims of Education (pp. 35-49). London: Routledge. ii Guignon, C. (2012). “Becoming a Person: Hermeneutic phenomenology’s contribution”, New Ideas in Psychology 30: pp.97-106. iii See Nancy, J-L. (1993). The Experience of Freedom (Stanford: Stanford University Press).; Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time (New York: Harper).; Heidegger, M. (2002) The Essence of Human Freedom (London: Continuum). iv Lovitt, W. (2013). Translator’s note. In Heidegger, M. (2013). The Question Concerning Technology (New York: HarperCollins). p. 1. v Heidegger, M. (2013). The Question Concerning Technology (New York: HarperCollins). p. 25. 

Phenomenology and the Pedagogical Situation Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to show how a phenomenological perspective on the “pedagogical situation” allows us to see essential aspects entailed in learning and teaching that are commonly ignored or considered detrimental to the educational process: sudden insights, disruptions, unpredictable outcomes. I will begin by looking at what distinguishes a phenomenological perspective on the pedagogical situation from that of other traditions. I will then use the work of two educational theorists in the German phenomenological tradition (Friedrich Copei and Otto Bollnow) to highlight two of these structures: discontinuity and uncontrollability. Finally, I will show how the contemporary German educational philosopher Käte Meyer-Drawe uses ideas developed by Copei and Bollnow (among others) to question the current educational paradigm. The Phenomenological Perspective on the Pedagogical Situation: The term “pedagogical situation” as a technical term, is mainly associated with the phenomenological tradition (e.g. Max van Manen, 1991; but also Paul Heimann, 1947). The term “situation,” on the other hand, has been used by a wide range of theorists of other traditions (e.g. Freire, Dewey, Wittgenstein)—be it in an educational or generally philosophical context. From a phenomenological perspective, the pedagogical situation and situations in general are constituted by and contingent upon the individuals to whom the situation is disclosed. Heidegger, for example, distinguishes between situation (Situation) and the general/objective situation (Lage). Situation (situation), he writes in Being and Time, “is not a frame-work present-at-hand in which Dasein occurs, or into which it might even just bring 1 itself” (Heidegger, 2008, pp. 299-300). This means that, for Heidegger, the situation is constituted by the individuals, and not the other way around. The general, objective situation, on the other hand, Heidegger uses the word “Lage,” is derivative of the more fundamental (existential) situation. As Van Manen points out, when we speak of understanding a person’s situation this is “more than a descriptor or objective datum about a person’s place”, it refers to “the existential perspective” of a person (van Manen, 1991, pp. 71-72). Applied to the pedagogical situation, this means that rather than thinking of the student as being located in a particular, objective place and time, designed to lead to specific outcomes (e.g., a particular behavior), the phenomenological perspective urges us to acknowledge each student’s unique, existential perspective, and to create conditions that hold the potential for each student to experience genuine understanding. Application of the phenomenological perspective to notions of learning and teaching: In line with the phenomenological perspective outlined above, the experience of the individual student is central to Friedrich Copei’s concept of learning. For him, the defining feature of the learning process is the “fruitful moment.” “Fruitful moments,” Copei writes, “are those peculiar moments in which a new insight or understanding awakens in us in a flash, in which an intellectual content grabs us, in which suddenly ‘a light goes off’” (Copei, 1966; 1930, p. 17). According to Copei, such moments are not limited to great discoveries or creative endeavors, but rather are the trademark of any kind of real learning. Decisive for understanding [Erkenntnis+ is not only the “what” but also the “how” of the process (46). The intensity that accompanies the experience is equally important because it reflects the “degree of personal understanding and the depth of self-transformation” (46) that distinguishes genuine 2 understanding from a vague grasping (Erfassen), and blind acceptance. This is how Copei describes the process leading to the fruitful moment: “An initial thrust/push [Anstoβ] rattles and breaks down common preconceptions [Selbstverständlichkeiten] and awakens a suspenseful/anticipatory question. This question leads to a methodical process of analyzing, organizing, combining what is given [die Gegebenheiten] and thus forges a path toward a solution, culminating—often after a delay in time—in the ‘fruitful moment’” (58). In order for the fruitful moment to be truly transformative it has to be followed by a phase in which what has been realized in the fruitful moment in a flash is being incorporated/integrated (Einbettung) into the “general intellectual context” of the individual (58-59). There is no guarantee, however, that the “fruitful moment” will come about. All we can do as teachers, he insists, is to create the conditions that increase the chances for students that it will happen. What ends up triggering the fruitful moment in a particular student may be exactly something that wasn’t planned, something that is seen as a disruption, something that slows down the (traditional) learning process. “It would be … wrong,” Copei writes, “to draw the pedagogical conclusion that all we need to do is to apply the right methods to force [erzwingen] the fruitful moment always and everywhere” (67) Only if there is an initial thrust or push (Anstoß) that leads the student to question preconceptions (Selbstverständlichkeiten) and that, in turn, leads to a suspenseful/anticipatory question (gespannte Frage), can any pedagogical methods be meaningfully applied. “*A+ny pedagogical method must fail,” he writes, “that claims that the focus on the transfer of (commonly held) preconceptions with regard to content and method alone can lead to genuine, creative achievement” (67-68). 3  Turning now to Bollnow, we will come across some of the same themes: The focus on experience, the discontinuous nature of learning, and the impossibility to control the outcome. For Bollnow, the defining feature of learning is derived from the way in which existential experiences shape us and make us who we are. He calls such experiences “encounters,” meaning, “certain, rare, fateful experiences that invade our lives, disrupt its previous course in a sudden and mostly painful way, and lead it in a different direction” (Bollnow, Anthropologische Pädagogik, Schriften Bd. VII, 2013, pp. 55-56). This process of encountering, he writes “that gives the becoming of the self of a human being its decisive meaning … does never happen in the form of a calm, continuous development …” (56). In contrast to the idea of a “continuous, harmonious development of the powers and abilities that lie within a person” (57), characteristic for the concept of Bildung (going back to Herder, Goethe, Humboldt), Bollnow sees discontinuity (Unstetigkeit) as a crucial element of real learning that overcomes a lack of engagement and allows for a way to “grasp the subject [Gegenstand+” in a way that “affects us in our innermost being [den Menschen in seinen Tiefen erschütterndes Verhältnis]” (57). Similar to Copei, Bollnow emphasizes the unpredictability and uncontrollability of this process. “The encounter,” he writes, “like all existential occurrences, cannot be planned. It happens unforeseen and unpredictably at a random moment. The teacher cannot bring it about, at will, through his/her art of instruction. The teacher can only prepare for it, can seek to consolidate the understanding after it has occurred. (57-58). For that reason, it “cannot be the immediate goal of the instruction”. “Instruction,” he writes, “can only transmit/provide 4 students with (vermitteln) continuous knowledge and create the preconditions for a possible encounter. If and when the encounter occurs, is no longer in the power of the teacher” (58).1 Use of these ideas to question the current educational paradigm: Finally, I want to refer to the work of Käte Meyer-Drawe, to show how she uses discontinuity and uncontrollability (the term she uses is “Unverfügbarkeit,” or “unattainability”) to question the current “pedagogical ideal,” a “stream-lined [reibungslose] turbo-assimilation [Anpassung]”. She writes: “Within the current technologies for the production of members of the globalized society there is no room for lack [Mangel]. Accumulation is the catchword, assimilation the successful action. It is the dictate of the machine that also determines the way we look at learning. As is well known, machines do not usually profit from difficulties that they get themselves into. Problems are difficulties that have to be gotten rid of” (Meyer-Drawe, 2013, p. 15). For real learning, she demands, “we need time-consuming irritation—which is unpopular” (15), we need “to emphasize productive disruption and a deferral [Verzögerung] of learning which phenomenological considerations of human learning have proposed as an alternative to the claim for streamlined [reibungslose] efficiency” (28). The idea of learning as experience may sound unremarkable, Meyer-Drawe writes, but “as a tendency it is subversive and anachronistic”. What makes it so, is its uncontrollability. “Experience,” she writes (echoing both Copei and Bollnow), “cannot be turned on and off. … *It is+ something *that+ is happening to us. … Learning … cannot be completely brought about through instruction. It is an event. But this does not make the teacher superfluous. The more he or she knows about the contingency of learning, the more the teacher will be able to take advantage of the favorable moment [Gunst der Stunde] (16). 1 It should at least be mentioned that another main focus of Bollnow’s work that cannot be discussed here is the importance of moods, in general, and what he calls the “pedagogical atmosphere,” with regard to education. See, for example: Bollnow, Otto F., The Pedagogical Atmosphere, in: Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 5-76, 1989. 5 What is needed, is a “protest against the normalcy of the effective (Normalität des Effektiven).” “Empirical research,” she writes, “defines the realm of what can be said in the field of pedagogy. Whatever does not correspond to its regulative procedures, is being discarded as un-scientific. Supported by brain research, only those results are being considered that can be made visible through statistical or observational technologies. Whatever cannot be made visible in that way, does, literally, not count” (34). Concluding remarks: A phenomenological perspective on the pedagogical situation can help make visible essential aspects of learning and teaching, that otherwise remain unseen, and thus unconsidered. A perspective that conceives of learning as experience, and that is, in Meyer- Drawe’s words “subversive and anachronistic,” is well positioned to serve as a counter-weight (and regulative ideal) in a discourse about learning and teaching that is dominated by demands for efficiency, controllability and the predictability of outcomes. 6 Works Cited Bollnow, O. F. (1989). The Pedagogicall Atmosphere. Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 5-76. Bollnow, O. F. (2013). Anthropologische Pädagogik, Schriften Bd. VII. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Copei, F. (1966; 1930). Der Fruchtbare Moment im Bildungsprozess. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer. Heidegger, M. (2008). Being and Time. New York: Harper&Row. Heimann, P. (1947). Die Pädagogische Situation als Psychologische Aufgabe. Pädagogik, 59-83. Meyer-Drawe, K. (2013). Diskurse des Lernens. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. van Manen, M. (1991). The Tact of Teaching: The Meaning of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness. Albany: State University of New York Press. 7 

Phenomenology and Existentialism: Philosophy for an Ecologically Just World In the West and North, phenomenology, and in particular existentialist philosophy, have tended to effloresce at times when humanity’s potential for exploitation and profligate cruelty have been most willingly noted and patently notable. As a result both have often been well considered and curried by groups who understand the inequities and violences of humanity through direct experience. For example, after its golden age immediately following World War II existentialism waned on the continent as the proximal understanding of atrocity was whittled away while at the same time it grew on the margins of North American philosophy, the purview of African-American and female scholars. Within this paper we will argue that phenomenology and existentialism can help us think into one of today’s most under-explored oppressions in the modern west; the continuing colonization of the more-than-human1 by humans vis-à-vis a destructive I/It relationship. Theorists including Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, and Ricoeur all agree that we are always and already in the world; that we are sensual and sensing bodies that interact and respond to both the landscape and the other beings that inhabit it. So then why does the non-human become so rapidly, in the words of eco- feminist Val Plumwood, “backgrounded” in our thoughts and discussions?2 And if, to paraphrase and extend Sartre we are not free unless all people are free, why is it we are so hesitant to question the potential restrictions of our own freedom in light of the limited freedom accorded to other beings? With this in mind, this paper will bring together the work of phenomenological and indigenous theorists who have foregrounded the more-than-human world and couple that with recent methodologically phenomenological research work focusing on the lived experience of various children attending an innovative “environmental” public school. The resultant combination will help elucidate a proposed series of different ‘orientations’ that humans might take towards the more-than-human world. Critical to this theorizing will be the work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty along with the more recent thoughts of Abram and Kleinburg-Levin. Also crucial is the work of Jewish existentialist Martin Buber as we develop his concept of ‘orientation’ in regards to the more-than-human and extrapolate from the I/Thou and I/Eternal Thou relationships making direct reference to his documented encounters with the non-human.3 This will allow us to situate the discussion of these various orientations within a framework of ‘relationship with’, ‘listening to’, and ‘learning from’ the more-than-human while pointing towards certain relevant ethical implications and brushing against the edge of some complex ontological questions. 1 More-than-human world is drawn from phenomenological theorist David Abrams and is his suggestion for replacing the word nature. 2 Including in this call out of ‘Why Phenomenology and Existentialism Now’? 3 Buber documents many such encounters including a horse, several cats and trees, and a piece of mica. Finally, this paper will end with some important implications for education being that we resolutely agree that “phenomenology never lost sight of education” but also because it never lost sight of the more-than-human or humanity’s potential for callous disregard, malice, and evil. References: Abram, D. (1996). The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More- than-human World. New York: Vintage Books. Abram, D. (2010). Becoming animal: an earthly cosmology. NY: Pantheon Books. Atleo, E. A. (2001). Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis. Vancouver: UBC Press. Basso, K.H. (1986). Stalking with stories: names, places and moral narratives among the western Apache. In D. Halpern (Ed.), On Nature (pp. 95-116). San Francisco, CA: North Point Press. Beeman, C. & Blenkinsop, S. (2008). Dwelling telling: Literalness and Ontology. Paideusis, 17(1): 13-24. Blenkinsop, S. (2005). Martin Buber: Educating for relationship. Ethics, Place, and Environment, 8 (3), 285-307. Blenkinsop, S. & Beeman, C. (2010). The world as co-teacher: Learning to working with a peerless colleague. The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy, 26 (3), 26-39. Brown, C. S. & Toadvine, T. (Eds.). (2003). Eco-Phenomenology: Back to the Earth Itself. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education. Durango, CO: Kivak. Carbaugh, D. (1999). “Just listen”: “Listening and landscape among the Blackfeet. Western Journal of Communication, 63(3): 250-270. Carbaugh, D. and Cerulli, T. (2013). Cultural discourses of dwelling: Investigating environmental communication as a place-based practice. Environmental Communication, 7(1): 4-23. Deluca, K. M. (2005). Thinking with Heidegger: Rethinking environmental theory and practice. Ethics & the Environment, 10 (1), 67-87. Denton, D. (1972). Existential Reflections on Teaching. North Quincy, Mass.: Christopher Pub. House. Donald, D. (2009). Forts, curriculum, and Indigenous Metissage: Imagining decolonization of Aboriginal-Canadian relations in educational contexts. First Nations Perspectives, 2 (1), 1-24. Evernden, N. (1985). The Natural Alien: Humankind and the Environment. Toronto: University of Toronto. Fettes, M. (2011). Sense and sensibilities: Educating the somatic imagination. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 27 (2), 114-129. Grun, M. (2005). Gadamer and the otherness of nature: Elements for an environmental education. Human Studies, 28 (2), 157-171. Jardine, D. W. (1998). To Dwell with a Boundless Heart: Essays in Curriculum Theory, Hermeneutics, and the Ecological Imagination. New York: Peter Lang. Jardine, D. W. (2006). On hermeneutics: “Over and above our wanting and doing”. In K. Tobin & J. Kincheloe (Eds.), Doing Educational Research: A Handbook. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 269-288. Kleinberg-Levin, D. (2008). Before the voice of reason: Echoes of responsibility in Merleau-Ponty's ecology and Levinas's ethics. Ithaca, NY: State University of New York Press. Kulnieks, A., Longboat, D.R., & Young, K. (2010). Re-indigenizing curriculum: An eco- hermeneutic approach to learning. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 6 (1), 15-24. Kulnieks, A., Longboat, D., Young, K. (2013) Contemporary Studies in Environmental and Indigenous Pedagogies: A Curricula of Stories and Place. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County Almanac. Toronto: Random House Inc, 1966. Manes, C. (1995). Christopher Manes. In D. Jensen (Ed.) Listening to the land: conversations about nature, culture and eros. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books. Merleau-Ponty, M. (2008). Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge. Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge. Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental culture: The ecological crisis of reason. NY: Routledge. Sammel, A. (2003). An invitation to dialogue: Gadamer, hermeneutic phenomenology, and critical environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 8, Spring, 155-168. Smith, M. (2001). Lost for words? Gadamer and Benjamin on the nature of language and the ‘language’ of nature. Environmental Values, 10, 59-75. Styres, S. (2011). Land as first teacher: A philosophical journeying. Reflective Practice: International and Multidisciplinary Perspectives, 12(6): 717-731. Treanor, B. (2009). Embodied ears: Being in the world and hearing the other. In B. Benson & N. Wirzba (Eds.). Words of Life: New Theological Turns in French Phenomenology. New York: Fordham University Press. Treanor, B. (2012). Turn around and step forward: Environmentalism, activism, and the social imagination. In Todd Mei (Ed.). From Ricoeur to Action: The Socio-Political Significance of Ricoeur’s Thinking. London: Continuum. Utsler, D. (2009). Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics as a model for environmental philosophy. Philosophy Today. Summer, 173-178. Weston, A. (2005). What if teaching went wild? Abridged version. Green Teacher, 76:8-12. 

Imperial Social Fields In ¿Que Onda?, Cynthia Bejarano describes the polarized spaces of a southwestern high school, where anti-immigrant sentiment, combined with school practices that institute English as the only acceptable public language, operate to validate English speakers in the school and to place Spanish-dominant students on the defensive. As a consequence of these colonial institutional influences, the classrooms, hallways, and gymnasium of the school—what I will be calling “social fields”—are treacherous spaces for students, who spar over claims to superiority articulated across boundaries of language, race, nationality, and ethnicity. Educationally, the social fields of the school teach colonial hierarchies, when they could be offering all the students rich linguistic and cultural opportunities. Spanish-dominant students could be aiding English-dominant students to acquire Spanish, and English- dominant students could be helping Spanish-dominant students learn English. But, instead, few of the students report any success in improving their second language fluency. Phenomenological investigations by Jean-Paul Sartre and Franz Fanon have helped pave the way for a theory that can conceptualize the hostile social interactions described by Bejarano. Sartre and Fanon described patterns of objectification, whereby others define individuals from the outside, undercutting an individual’s connection to their projects and imposing a demeaning portrait upon them. Fanon describes the ways in which a colonial gaze renders even the most natural bodily acts self-conscious and halting. Sartre’s ontology of social groups in the Critique of Dialectical Reason goes further and describes a social field of “seriality” in which people are immobilized by the multiple relations they have one another. I would like to extend these studies of objectification and social ontology by developing a concept “social field” that can be used to characterize the “imperial social fields” described by Bejarano. In the broadest sense, the concept social fields refers to the interplay of bodies in a specified area; as people interact—developing tones, rhythms, and styles—a social fabric influencing the possible and impossible is woven. Accordingly, the concept of social fields is ontological in emphasis: it is an attempt to characterize intersubjective dynamics to which students and teachers must adjust as they navigate a particular social space. In the social fields described by Bejarano, it is exceedingly difficult to try one’s broken English or Spanish, so students routinely choose other courses of behavior. Because the resulting social realities are momentary and specific to a particular group of people, the ways in which these fleeting social realities shape what can and cannot be said, as well as what actions are possible, has often remained untheorized. Yet, as Bejarano’s study shows, these social realities play a powerful role in directing students’ educational experiences, and educators might do well to trace the patterns and possibilities attending the many varieties of social fields. References Bejarano, Cynthia (2005). ¿Que Onda? (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press) Fanon, Franz (1967). Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press) Sartre, Jean-Paul (1956). Being and Nothingness (New York: Washington Square Press) Sartre, Jean-Paul(1976). Critique of Dialectical Reason. Trans. Alan Sheridan-Smith (London: Verso) 

Why Phenomenology and Existentialism in Education? In an era of poststructuralism and postmodernism, the questions central to phenomenology and existentialism perhaps seem naïve or nostalgic. Why bother returning to questions of freedom, first- person experience, and social/ecological ontologies when freedom is now a postmodern simulacrum, the question of the subject has been replaced by multiple, de-centered selves, and the idea of ontology is eclipsed by performativity? And yet, after years of virtual neglect, phenomenology in multiple fields is having a resurgence. As Claudia Ruitenberg asked in the Introduction to the 2012 PES Yearbook, is it possible that education itself is undergoing a kind of “phenomenological revival”? As part of a phenomenological revival, this panel includes four papers that demonstrate distinct ways phenomenology and existentialism can intervene in current problems in educational philosophy and research. Collectively, the papers demonstrate the great breadth and wide application of these two traditions to a host of educational issues including the question of freedom, equity for minority students, the search for eco-justice, and the standardization of the pedagogical situation. SunnInn Yun: Freedom in Education: A Call for Phenomenology In the perennial discussion of the aims of education there has been both celebration of and contestation over the idea of freedom. Celebration is manifested in many of the eulogies to empowerment and choice that are promoted by the agendas of neoliberal policy. Against this background, there is also some criticism. A number of authors have argued against the understanding of education in terms of any fixed ideals on the grounds that the aims of education cannot be settled. In spite of the questioning, however, educational discourse continues to make vague reference to them, and freedom in particular continues to be vigorously defended as an educational ideal. Cutting through these debates, phenomenology provides us with a new way forward. In particular, it can lead to a different conceptualization of freedom. At a time when the direct focus on freedom has been called into question by some, but where it is still placed at the centre of educational discourse, the question should be how, other than as an educational ideal, freedom can appear in education. With reference especially to Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Nancy, my discussion will attempt to raise the question of freedom in new ways. In particular, it will characterize freedom not as something one has, but rather as something that occurs. This will be shown to be of pervasive importance phenomenologically, as well as of critical importance for our understanding of and practice in education. Frank Margonis: Imperial Social Fields Drawing upon the phenomenological investigations of Jean-Paul Sarte (1956) and Franz Fanon (1967), this paper will describe the power of the objectifications undergone by students in Cynthia Bejarano’s study of a southwestern high school and its colonial institutional influences. Bejarano’s portrait of educational objectification through “imperial social fields” will be combined with Sartre’s (1976) ontology of social groups. In the broadest sense, the concept social fields refers to the interplay of bodies in a specified area; as people interact—developing tones, rhythms, and styles—a social fabric influencing the possible and impossible is woven. Accordingly, the concept of social fields is ontological in emphasis: it is an attempt to characterize intersubjective dynamics to which students and teachers must adjust as they navigate a particular social space. In the social fields described by Bejarano, it is exceedingly difficult to try one’s broken English or Spanish, so students routinely choose other courses of behavior. Because the resulting social realities are momentary and specific to a particular group of people, the ways in which these fleeting social realities shape what can and cannot be said, as well as what actions are possible, has often remained untheorized. Yet, as Bejarano’s study shows, these social realities play a powerful role in directing students’ educational experiences, and educators might do well to trace the patterns and possibilities attending the many varieties of social fields. Sean Blenkinsop, Michael Derby, Laura Piersol: Phenomenology and Existentialism: Philosophy for an Ecologically Just World Within this paper we will argue that phenomenology and existentialism can help us think into one of today’s most under-explored oppressions in the modern west: the continuing colonization of the more-than-human by humans vis-à-vis a destructive I/It relationship. If, to paraphrase and extend Sartre, we are not free unless all people are free, why is it we are so hesitant to question the potential restrictions of our own freedom in light of the limited freedom accorded to other beings? With this in mind, this paper will bring together the work of phenomenological and indigenous theorists who have foregrounded the more-than-human world and couple that with recent methodologically phenomenological research work focusing on the lived experience of various children attending an innovative “environmental” public school. The resultant combination will help elucidate a proposed series of different ‘orientations’ that humans might take towards the more- than-human world: relationship with, listening to, and learning from. Igor Jasinsky: Phenomenology and the “Pedagogical Situation” What we mean when we refer to a situation as “pedagogical” depends to a large extent on what we mean by “situation.” How we describe, for example, the quintessential “pedagogical situation” of the classroom beyond the most basic facts is likely to determine the pedagogical possibilities we see in it. It is the purpose of this paper to reveal how an existential-phenomenological perspective brings to the fore essential aspects of the pedagogical situation that are not present in other traditions. In particular, I show that an acknowledgement of the pre-linguistic and pre-reflective dimension of lived, first-person experience allows us to see the development and flourishing of the individuals involved in the pedagogical situation as a crucial factor in the educational process. To illustrate how an awareness of the pre-linguistic and pre-reflective dimension of experience can help us better understand the "pedagogical situation,” I present here the mostly un-translated work of the German educational philosophers and theorists Friedrich Copei (on the “creative/fertile moment” in the educational process), Otto Bollnow (on the pre-scientific and pre-cognitive dimension of learning and knowledge), and Werner Loch (on practical knowledge and habit formation). 

Why Phenomenology and Existentialism in Education? Symposium sponsored by the Phenomenology and Existentialism SIG at the Philosophy of Education Society Annual Conference (13-17 March 2014, Albuquerque) One of the reasons why phenomenology and existentialism have been criticized in much current philosophy and social science has to do with the latent or explicit subject-centred stance these approaches are supposed to take. This is clearly the case in some of Husserl’s early writings where he attempts to found a solid and even scientific form of doing philosophy on the basis of transcendental subjectivity. As such it is easy to associate phenomenology with a form of foundationalism that has been heavily criticized by postmodern and post-structuralist tendencies which still bloom in the field of educational philosophy and theory. I believe that the various contributions to this symposium – precisely in their variety – show that this criticism is without any ground whatsoever. Every one of these clearly shows that phenomenology and existentialism can do a great job for educationalists without leading them to posit the subject as the starting point and/or concluding piece. As I see it, the common denominator which unites these different papers is a very crucial intuition behind phenomenology and existentialism, viz. that in order to make sense of ourselves and the world we live in we have to do justice to our own experiences of ourselves and the world. But, far from automatically giving rise to a totalitarianism of subjectivity, the papers presented today convincingly show that, if we do stay true to our experiences, we have to admit not to be the authors of our own life and not to be the foundational source of meaning: all papers stress that human action and thought is dependent upon something that precedes, transcends or lies outside human subjectivity. It is striking to see that all authors refer to dimensions that exceed conscious subjective self-control, such as the pre-reflective source of meaning, human embodiment, the unpredictable moments that structurally define the pedagogical situation, the social conditions of subjectivity-formation, and – last but not least - the ‘More than human’. Somehow, the different papers also deal with the issue of human freedom and responsibility, stressing that what is at stake is not an ‘easy’ form of liberty (‘act as you like’), but precisely a challenge to self-enclosed notions of human agency. And – taking this basic intuition behind phenomenology and existentialism very seriously – all papers address the political potential such an account allows for. They all criticize a dominant way of thinking about the relationship between subject and the other/the world which is complicit to an unjust and oppressive world order. Opening up our thoughts and feelings to a dimension that resides ‘besides ourselves’ - or at least outside of intentional control –, possibilities are created for true transformation and for a more desirable way to live our individual and collective lives. To me, the similarities I just described don’t seem odd to occur in a panel composed of people working within education studies. After all, the field of education is par excellence a time and a place where we get confronted with something that puts an end to the will to control things from a subjective perspective. Education always has a passive and perhaps even a violent dimension to it: when people get educated, it is implied that they are confronted with something that might change their existence. Joris Vlieghe