Hannah Arendt on the crisis that confronts us:

1
Hannah Arendt on the crisis that confronts us

• The rise of society

2
What society looks like

• 'transformation of the private care for private
  property into a public concern' (Arendt, 1958
  68).
• 'consumption takes the place of all the truly
  relating activities' (Arendt, 1964/1994 21)

3
Consequences of the rise of society

• 1 Loss of public space or the common world
• We have lost the world' that 'lies in between
  people' (Arendt, 1968b 12).

4

• 2 Loss of action, replaced by behaviour
  loss of who, replaced by what, we are
• Actions 'disclose the "who," the unique and
  distinct identity of the agent' to agent
  themselves and to others (Arendt, 1958 180).
• 'Behaviour' reduces a person to what they are,
  to the 'qualities' each individual 'necessarily
  shares with others' (Arendt, 1958 181).

5

• 3 (from 1 and 2) Loss of human freedom
• Walt Whitman (1892/2000) reminds us that, 'To
  have great poets, there must be great audiences,
  too'.
• Reduced to our behaviour, to what we are, we
  no longer possess a freedom that is truly human.

6
Understanding the rise of society

• in the absence of actual certainty in the midst
  of a precarious and hazardous world, men
  cultivated all sorts of things that would give
  them the feeling of certainty.
• (emphasis in the original, Dewey, 1929/1960 26)
  
• The desire to reduce 'uncertainty and to save
  human affairs from their frailty' fuelled an
  'attempt to eliminate action' (Arendt, 1958
  230).

7
The rise of society

• and the crisis in education

8
Understanding the crisis in education

• 'the functionalist quest for rationality, order,
  and certainty in the field of education' (Skrtic,
  1991 153).

9
Consequences of the crisis in education

• 1 The reduction of education to a technology
• A 'science of teaching' or - as Greene puts it -
  'technology of teaching' (Greene, 1978 28)

10

• 2 The loss of what is common in education
• 'personalised learning'
• teaching assistants who provide students with
  one-to-one support
• 'Individual Education Plans'.

11

• 2 The loss of what is common in education
• Tony Blair
• The need to differentiate provision to individual
  aptitudes within schools often took second place.
  Inclusion too readily became an end in itself,
  rather than the means to identify and provide
  better for the talents of each individual pupil.
• (Blair, 2001)

12

• 3 The denial of private space for children
• Children 'can thrive only in concealment'
  (Arendt, 1968a 188).
• But mass society not only destroys the public
  realm but the private as well (Arendt, 1958
  59).
• Hence children have lost 'the security of
  private life (Arendt 1968a 186).

13
Arendts response to the crisis that confronts us

• Reclaiming public spaces

14

• Appearing in a common world as part of a common
  project
• 'where people are with others and neither for nor
  against them - that is, in sheer human
  togetherness' (emphasis in the original, Arendt,
  1958 180).

15
The solution to the crisis in education

• Arendts response

16

• 'school is by no means the world and must not
  pretend to be' (Arendt, 1968a 188).
• It is 'the essence of educational activity to
  cherish and protect the child against the world'
  (Arendt, 1968a 192).

17
Whats wrong with Arendts solution?
18

• A tension
• schools can and should be private spaces
• force of 'the social
• Arendt 'The function of the school is to teach
  children what the world is like and not to
  instruct them in the art of living' (Arendt,
  1968a 195).
• But 'learning is a way of being in the world,
  not a way of coming to know about it' (Hanks,
  1991 24).

19
The solution Arendt should have given, but didnt

• Giroux education must be treated as a public
  good - as a crucial site where students gain a
  public voice and come to grips with their own
  power (Giroux, 2002 432).

20

• Lies
• Lying to the young is wrong.
• Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
• Telling them that Gods in his heaven
• and alls well with the world is wrong.
• They know what you mean. They are people too.
• Tell them the difficulties cant be counted,
• and let them see not only what will be
• but see with clarity these present times.
• Say obstacles exist they must encounter,
• sorrow comes, hardship happens.
• The hell with it. Who never knew
• the price of happiness will not be happy.
• (Yevtushenko, 1962)

21
References

• Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition (University
  of Chicago Press Chicago)
• Arendt, H. (1964/1994) "What Remains? The
  Language Remains" A Conversation with Gunter
  Gaus, in J. Kohn, (ed.) Essays in Understanding
  1930-1954 (London Harcourt Brace Company)
• Arendt, H. (1968a) Between Past and Future eight
  exercises in political thought (Revised edition,
  New York The Viking Press)
• Arendt, H. (1968b) Men in Dark Times (New York
  Harcourt, Brace World)
• Dewey, J. (1929/1960) The Quest for Certainty A
  Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action,
  in J. A. Boydston (Ed.) (1960) John Dewey The
  Later Work, 1925-1953 Volume 4 1929 (Carbondale
  and Edwardsville Southern Illinois University
  Press)

22

• Giroux, H.A. (2002) Neoliberalism, Corporate
  Culture, and the Promise of Higher Education The
  University as a Democratic Public Sphere, Harvard
  Educational Review, 72.4, pp. 425-463
• Greene, M. (1978) Teaching The Question of
  Personal Reality, Teachers College Record, 80.1,
  pp. 23-35
• Hanks, W. F. (1991) Forward, in J. Lave E.
  Wenger, (eds.) Situated Learning Legitimate
  Peripheral Participation (Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press)
• Skrtic, T. M. (1991) The Special Education
  Paradox Equity as the Way to Excellence, Harvard
  Educational Review, 61.2, pp.148-206
• Whitman, W. (1892/2000) Prose Work (Philadelphia
  David McKay) Online www.bartleby.com/229/. 23
  May 2005
• Yevtushenko, Y (1962) Selected Poems
  (Harmondsworth Penguin)