The positive valorization of constant change and improvement in educational thought is an effect of a strong connection between the pedagogy and the idea of progress and development (Biesta 2013). The idea of progress is that history is not a simple succession of events or an eternal return of the same but an ordered, linear, constant process with a definite, even if seemingly unattainable end. This idea is said to be one of the most captivating metaphors of the modern culture (Jenks 2008). It is a form of thought and perception that informs our models of reality (Sachs 2010), a magic formula that dominates our imagination to such a degree that it is hard to see reality in non-developmental terms (Escobar 1995). It is a machine for social engineering that is seen as legitimized when it wields power over both children and adults (Walkerdine 2008). It is, last but not least, a theodicy that explains all phenomena by referencing the perfection that lies in our future (Sbert 2010).

The dominance of the idea of progress in education allowed the educational institutions to be subordinated to external aims and demands. It allowed for functionalization, and instrumentalization of educational practice. This tendency is made even stronger by the neoliberal colonization of vast sectors of social life. When connected with a discourse of a “risk society” (Beck 1992) it allows for an emergence of a web of strategies and techniques that help in managing society while reducing human subjectivity to a fetishistic imperative of growth and development. Both the liberal and the critical currents of pedagogy are based on the idea of progress. Because of their inability to foster thinking outside the developmental perspective they are powerless when confronted with the contemporary axiological crisis of values such as solidarity, community and democracy.

The aim of my presentation is to give an account of the concept of the “pedagogy of now”, based on a non-linear concept of time. I start with a notion presented by Gert Biesta, that temporality has no place in educational practice and thought (Biesta 2013), the concept of “messianic time as time of study” of Tyson Lewis and the idea of school as free time of Masschelein and Simmons (Masschelein, Simmons 2013). I will try to show how it is possible to think about education using the notion of kairological time (Benjamin 1928).   

Biesta, G.J.J. (2013). The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder, London: Paradigm Publishers. Masschelein, J., Simons, M. (2013). In defence of the School. A public issue. Leuven: E-ducation, Culture & Society Publishers. Beck, Ulrich. Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Vol. 17. Sage, 1992. Lewis, T. E. (2013). On study: Giorgio Agamben and educational potentiality. Routledge.