In this paper I will respond to the warning from Jacques Rancière (1991) that education can all too often turn into stultification of students of all ages if it follows a logic of explanation. Such logic, according to Rancière, reproduces a hierarchical distribution of power in society, which hinders change. Since change is a defining characteristic of educational thought it seems ironic that dominant political as well as theoretical views on education do not build on what is educational with education. It also has a tendency to make obsolete the idea that teaching can be anything other than confirmation of existing power relationships.

This, of course, could be true for all the European societies. I will contextualize the paper by showing that marketization and differentiation of education (only structurally….), in combination with the current emphasis on (a particular kind of) knowledge, has increased the strength of such a logic of explanation in education: it has become almost the defining characteristic of good teaching in ‘public’ discourse. My aim, as well as my method, (a Rancièrean “intervention”, coupled with Samuel Beckett’s approach to literary criticism) is to intervene into this discourse on education since it hinders change. In order to respond to Rancière’s warning, I will develop in the paper an alternative view on teaching by focusing my critical attention on the concepts of “learning”, “teaching”, and particularly the idea of “teaching as art”.

The paper will be written from within a Swedish humanistic tradition of education (e.g. Hammer building on Dilthey; Sprangler), and theoretically be based on a close reading of John Dewey and Rancière, on their views on education and aestethics. The line of discussion throughout the paper will be on the relationship between research, education and art (e.g. Irit Rogoff; Claire Bishop; Paul O’Neill & Mick Wilson; Grant Kesler) and the notion of teaching as art (e.g. Maxine Greene; David Hansen). In the final section, and as a result of the explorations in the paper, I put forth the idea of ‘teacher as partisan artist’ who works within a classroom as a community of poets.

Dewey, John (2005). Art as Experience. Penguin. Rancière, Jacques (1991). The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.