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Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 12
Halvor Hoveid
Marit Honerød Hoveid
Making Education
Educational
A Reflexive Approach to Teaching
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories
in Education
Volume 12
Series Editors
Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Editorial Board
Gert Biesta, Arts & Social Sci, Halsbury Bldg, Brunel University
London, Uxbridge, UK
David Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
Jorge Larrosa, Barcelona University, Barcelona, Spain
Nel Noddings, Stanford University, Ocean Grove, NJ, USA
Roland Reichenbach, Erziehungswissenschaft, University of Zurich,
Zurich, Switzerland
Naoko Saito, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University,
Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan
Paul Smeyers, Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University and KU
Leuven, Ghent, Belgium
Paul Standish, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK
Sharon Todd, Professor of Education, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Scope of the Series
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education signifies new directions and
possibilities out of a traditional field of philosophy and education. Around the globe,
exciting scholarship that breaks down and reformulates traditions in the humanities
and social sciences is being created in the field of education scholarship. This series
provides a venue for publication by education scholars whose work reflect the
dynamic and experimental qualities that characterize today’s academy.
The series associates philosophy and theory not exclusively with a cognitive
interest (to know, to define, to order) or an evaluative interest (to judge, to impose
criteria of validity) but also with an experimental and attentive attitude which is
characteristic for exercises in thought that try to find out how to move in the present
and how to deal with the actual spaces and times, the different languages and
practices of education and its transformations around the globe. It addresses the
need to draw on thought across all sorts of borders and counts amongst its elements
the following: the valuing of diverse processes of inquiry; an openness to various
forms of communication, knowledge, and understanding; a willingness to always
continue experimentation that incorporates debate and critique; and an application
of this spirit, as implied above, to the institutions and issues of education.
Authors for the series come not only from philosophy of education but also from
curriculum studies and critical theory, social sciences theory, and humanities theory
in education. The series incorporates volumes that are trans- and inner-disciplinary.
The audience for the series includes academics, professionals and students in the
fields of educational thought and theory, philosophy and social theory, and critical
scholarship.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8638

Halvor Hoveid • Marit Honerød Hoveid
Making Education
Educational
A Reflexive Approach to Teaching
Halvor Hoveid Marit Honerød Hoveid
Department of Teacher Education Department of Education and Lifelong
Norwegian University of Science Learning
and Technology Norwegian University of Science
Trondheim, Norway and Technology
Trondheim, Norway
ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education
ISBN 978-3-030-27075-9 ISBN 978-3-030-27076-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27076-6
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
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To our present and future grandchildren
Foreword
A book about teaching seems almost anachronistic in light of the current climate of
performativity in which ‘learning’ has become the mantra of global educational
reform. Reflecting upon the beginnings of my own teaching career, which occurred
not so long ago in geological time but was nonetheless part of a different era, I can
sometimes feel a sense of loss, but mostly a sense of disappointment bordering on
despair at what the language of education has become, so divorced is it from the act
of teaching – and all the rich complexities that this entails.
My sense of having lost something is not caught up in some middle-age nostalgia
for a time that was ‘better’. I am not so naïve as to think that schools, and the teach-
ers within them, have not participated in practices of colonisation and exclusion or
that they have not perpetuated violences through their micro regulations and seem-
ingly minor gestures that ended up having profound and lasting effects – and con-
tinue to do so. Rather, my sense of having lost something has to do with a feeling
that there has been a rupture with a long tradition of teaching to which I belong, for
better and worse. Indeed, it was through acknowledging that the power of teaching
could be used for maleficent ends that prompted many of us in my own teacher
education programme to try to use this power responsibly, to become educators that
could engage with that part of the teaching tradition concerned with human enrich-
ment, democracy and social justice. This part of the tradition, reflected in educa-
tional thinkers from antiquity right through to Rousseau, Dewey, Montessori,
Greene and Freire, was not about converting students to a specific world view, or to
insist that they were deficient and thereby in need of the school’s civilising mission;
instead, the tradition of teaching that mattered to us was inspirational, showing us
as beginning teachers that not only could the world be a different place but that our
role in helping to shape that world actually mattered.
It mattered not only because of what we were – teachers – but because of who it
enabled us to become through how we approached students. It led us to interact
with them in a way that followed the students’ rhythms and moves while also allow-
ing those moves to shape the subject matter on offer. It was a way of dancing with
students that sought to encourage them to think for themselves and to engage with
the world in informed and caring ways. Teaching was seen to be central to educa-
vii
viii Foreword
tion, and our actions as teachers were necessary for setting the conditions, as it
were, for something to happen, something more than ‘learning’ information and
facts (however important these might be); indeed, it was about creating experiences
that optimally could enhance what we were studying on a particular day; but
equally, they could also lead us astray, propelling us off into uncharted territory that
compelled us as teachers to exercise judgement in knowing when to follow this
serendipitous flight and when to loop it back to what we had been doing together.
Teaching therefore is not a perfect science but an artful venture involving continual
balance and reflection.
But you would not necessarily recognise this in current discourses about educa-
tion – even if you will find it in many teachers’ classrooms who are struggling
against the commodification of learning and the rigid examination structures upon
which their teaching is judged. Recently, I attended a meeting with policymakers in
the Irish government who unabashedly declared that education is ‘in the business of
learning’. Put in this way, teaching becomes the handmaid of ‘learning’; it is no
longer an invitation to students to reflect, think or articulate but is instead being
turned into mechanism by which students can acquire skills and facts. I am not sug-
gesting by any measure that skills and facts are totally unimportant, but they do not
lie at the heart of education, or what makes education educational to put in Hoveid
and Hoveid’s words, which involves far more complex and essential qualities of
insight, informed judgement, meaning-making, creativity and imagination, qualities
which cannot entirely be measured on a test but are crucial to living a sound and
meaningful life in both the private and public domain.
What Hoveid and Hoveid show in this very welcomed volume is that teaching is
the ‘driver’ of formal education – not the other way around. That is, insofar as
schooling continues to be thought of as a mechanism, it ceases to be an invitation to
the world: to construct meaning, understand how it functions, challenge existing
orthodoxies and find a way of living with it on one’s own terms and as part of a col-
lective. Moreover, through its appeals to ‘efficient’ forms of teaching that lead to
immediately discernible learning outcomes, it risks at the very least, deprofession-
alising and, at the worst, dehumanising the work of teachers and their actions in the
classroom. Even the example they give of students who spent time working on
constructing a functional wooden box for holding 80 litres of firewood (that involved
complex negotiations with other group members, mathematical skill, understanding
of physical properties of the material, creativity and imagination) is telling insofar
as students themselves could not see they had learned anything in doing this task
since it was not about factual knowledge to be examined. The success of the mecha-
nistic model is borne out, therefore, by the ways in which perceptions of teaching
and learning are reduced to a cause-effect relationship that can then be measured.
Instead, the emphasis that Hoveid and Hoveid place on reflection (read through
Ricoeur’s work on memory) challenges these received ‘truths’ about education as
involving simplistic input-output dynamics. Here, memory and memorisation are
two different elements of living: the latter involving mimetic recall of content from
books and other sources of information and the former involving processes of expe-
riencing lived life and making connections to other experiences in ways that are
Foreword ix
history-making. What the authors make clear is that the current discourses guiding
educational reform only privilege memorisation as a technique, forgetting that
memory is also involved in formations of human identity and relationality. Thus,
reflecting on teaching becomes not merely an exercise of ‘what’ teachers have done,
or what techniques ‘work’ in a classroom, but ‘who’ teachers become in the context
of the relationships they have with their students and with the content being taught.
In light of this, self-reflexivity develops, in the hands of the Hoveids, ‘by way of
reading teaching as a text’. For teachers to reflect in ways that are meaningful to
them requires delving into the complexity of the classroom and a refusal to encap-
sulate their observations into simplistic structures of outcome-based learning.
Indeed, the first time I attended a secondary classroom in a town just outside Dublin
to observe a student teacher, I remember being struck by the list of ‘learning out-
comes’ she wrote on the board; the students were to copy these down as if to inter-
nalise what they were supposed to get out of this 40-min lesson before it even began.
It is not as if teaching needs to be shrouded in mystery, but the ‘outcomes’ end up
becoming fixed standards against which students are to measure their own progress.
The language of ‘learning outcomes’ has little then to do with what students are
actually learning, studying and experiencing and more to do with an ideal construct
of attainment. It is not that teachers do not need goals or aims or purposes but that
the extent to which this is the only way to think about students’ engagement with
subject matter blinds us to what might really matter for students in that engagement.
Thus, reflecting on one’s teaching practice as a text needs to move beyond the
(largely imagined) link between technique and outcome and into the territory of the
quality of teaching practice as conditioning environments of inquiry, insight, imagi-
nation and compassion.
What is so curious about the dominant mechanistic discourses of education is
that they seek to diminish teaching as a specifically human and artful act based on
trying to minimise teachers’ judgement, self-reflection, attention and intuition. In
other words, it removes the very human element of teaching as an action that in turn
can affect the world and replaces it with industries based on better systems of deliv-
ery. It begs the question, however, given we live in a digital age, why would we need
schools to focus even more on information delivery and consumption? Or is ‘teach-
ing’ as the handmaid to ‘learning’ simply being made to imitate structures of digital
interface? Presenting a smooth, user-friendly screen for students to learn better,
more, faster? What this volume compels us to confront is that while these may be
the misguided ideals of some policymakers, publishers and other educational indus-
tries, something else is going on in our classrooms. The real question is: Do we have
the courage to face teaching for what it is, or will we simply seek to erase it in the
name of mechanical efficiency?
Maynooth University Sharon Todd

Maynooth, Ireland
Preface
In education, teaching is part of the equation, teaching and learning. The one cannot
be subsumed into the other. We must keep them apart – at least analytically – to
grasp some of the complexities entailed in them as processes. Teaching and learn-
ing, as intertwined actions, happen daily around the world, both in and out of formal
education. What we wanted to do in this project was to try to grasp some of the
complexities of these processes into words. We decided to focus on teaching, mainly
because teaching in today’s educational climate seems almost forgotten. Teaching
we contend, when it happens, holds the potential for new beginnings, for learning,
in the true sense of that word – something life-altering.
Both of us authors grew up in rural districts outside of mid-sized towns in
Norway. We both went to smaller rural schools where we attended classes governed
by one teacher and have experienced both sides of such regimes, the caring and the
authoritarian. As students in the 1970s and 1980s, we experienced and were part of
the opposition against those in power, the hierarchies of (mostly) men ruling across
the universities and in societies in general. Today, we witness how education devel-
ops as a culture of competition subsumed into a system of algorithms of technical-
mathematical reasoning that is hard to grasp. Our lifetime has shown us a series of
developments in and out of education where oppositions against what holds power
needs constant deliberation and discussion. Truth be told, the current situation in
education has some scary traits.
But we did not want to write a book about what scares us. We wanted to write
about education in a way that can make one see what possibilities there are, without
forgetting both what has been and what is at stake. We wanted to write about educa-
tion educationally. Our intention was to address teaching, the complexity of teach-
ing, as the driver of this process. This is therefore a book about teaching where we
hope to disturb the dominant understanding of teaching as a delivery to those (so-
called) not-knowledgeable. Teaching in our undertaking is understood as action,
because we think teaching holds a potential in the course of recognition, to use Paul
Ricoeur’s words. Our understanding of teaching through action builds on the phi-
losophy of the French philosopher, Paul Ricoeur (1913–2005). He has provided a
work through all the texts he has written, an enormous and manifold source for
xi
xii Preface
developing thought and practice. His texts are a legacy, we argue, an invaluable gift
to humanity.
We address teaching as action in this book. This builds directly on Ricoeur’s
theories of action. We once adopted the idea that Ricoeur’s philosophy could be
used as a rich source for deliberations about education. In this, we specifically
wanted to try to work out what is entailed in thinking education and teaching in
reflexive terms, hence the title of the book. Understanding teaching reflexively
means to try to flesh out what is entailed in what one does when one does what one
does – to put it in colloquial terms. To understand and think of teaching in the act of
teaching means to be attentive to what teaching does. The reflexivity of teaching is
attention paid to how teaching and learning processes unfold.
To write a book takes time and help from others. In this work, there are some
special people who have given of their time and commitment which has been invalu-
able. First, thank you Ronda Schlumbohm. Discussing education with a dedicated
and experienced teacher like you makes us understand what teaching can be. We do
hope some of this show in our writing about teaching. To write in a foreign language
is demanding, and without you Peter (Gray), we would have been lost. You have
managed to make some of our Norwenglish become readable, for that we are for-
ever in your debt: Tusen Takk. We would also like to thank one of the first reviewers
of our book proposal. His (we think it was a man) comments were encouraging and
given in a way that made us believe that this project was feasible. Such reviews are
extremely helpful and not that common in academia – you set an example. Then to
Annemarie Keur, from Springer, your encouragement and steadiness have given us
confidence when working on the project. Springer is lucky to have you.
It took almost 2 years, but that is probably how it is and had to be for us to
become clear about what we wanted to address in this book. We have presented at
conferences and discussed with colleagues as part of that process. Such events
whether they are at ECER (European Educational Research Conference) or at INPE
(International Network of Philosophers of Education) or at some other venue are
invaluable for scholarly work. We strongly believe such venues are more important
than ever – to keep thoughts alive. To paraphrase Ricoeur, once a book is written,
the words are dead, until some picks up that book and starts reading and then can
bring the thoughts back into life.
We hope that someone will pick up this book and will engage you in your think-
ing about teaching, and if you are teaching, we hope that it will inspire you in your
actions. Teaching is and will always be a work in progress – that is the hope.
Trondheim, Norway Halvor Hoveid

Marit Honerød Hoveid
Contents
1 Introduction�� 1
1.1 A Background�� 3
1.1.1 The Harnessing of Education for Economic
Growth �� 3
1.1.2 A Mathematical-Scientific Approach
to Education�� 5
1.1.3 What Is Threatened by Universalization
of Knowledge�� 7
1.2 A Historical Account �� 8
1.2.1 Two Stories About the Beginning�� 8
1.2.2 Education; Knowledge and Truth�� 11
1.3 Making Education Educational �� 12
1.3.1 A Didactic of Teaching�� 14
1.4 Our Use of Ricoeur’s Philosophy�� 16
1.4.1 Two Different Meanings of the Question Who?�� 18
1.4.2 Different Processes of Identifying Teaching
as a Process Related to Learning – Collective
and Individual Memory �� 20
1.5 The Different Chapters of the Book�� 23
Literature�� 26
2 Teaching�� 29
2.1 Teaching – A Practice�� 30
2.1.1 Paying Attention to Students and Providing Time
and Space for Speaking and Telling�� 31
2.1.2 Repetition of Structure – Allows Students to Gain
a Deeper Understanding�� 33
2.1.3 Transitions – From One Activity to the Next�� 34
2.1.4 Coherence – To Make Connections with Culture�� 36
2.1.5 Collaboration – What the Class Does Together
and Then You Can Do It on Your Own�� 37
xiii
xiv Contents
2.2 Teaching for the Test – Or Is It Testing

for Teaching? �� 40
Literature�� 45
3 Teaching – A Reflexive Approach �� 47
3.1 A Methodological Reflection About a Reflexive
Approach �� 48
3.2 History as a Support for the Understanding
of the Reflexivity of Teaching �� 51
3.2.1 Two Forms of Language�� 52
3.2.2 Two Different Concepts of Identity �� 53
3.2.3 History as a Frame of Reference for Education�� 56
3.3 On the Threshold Between a Scientific
and a Phenomenological Approach to Teaching�� 58
3.3.1 Practical Reason – Who You Are Relates
to What You Do�� 58
3.3.2 Theoretical Reason – By Systematic
and Methodological Procedures�� 59
3.4 Three Modes of Reflexivity of Teaching �� 60
3.4.1 The First Mode of Reflexivity of Teaching –
Through Subject Knowledge �� 61
3.4.2 The Second Mode of Reflexivity of Teaching –
Through Procedures�� 63
3.4.3 The Third Mode of Reflexivity of Teaching –
The Pragmatics of the Act of Teaching�� 70
3.4.4 Summing Up – Reflexivity in Teaching�� 75
Literature�� 77
4 Teaching and Epistemology�� 79
4.1 Problematising Knowledge and Freedom in Education�� 80
4.2 Traces in History – A Path After Paul Ricoeur�� 82
4.2.1 Memory and Knowledge �� 83
4.2.2 Cultural Agreements and Historical Developments
Referring to Knowing That�� 86
4.2.3 Singularity at the Intersection Between Freedom
and Culturally Instituted Knowledge�� 88
4.3 Teaching as Knowing How: Freedom and Practical Reason�� 91
4.3.1 Teachers’ Perception and Memory in the Acts
of Teaching�� 91
4.3.2 Reflexivity of Teaching in Perception and Memory�� 94
4.3.3 Teaching in the Living Present – The Function
of Memory-Images, or Retention�� 97
4.4 Teaching as a Practice and the Question of Veracity �� 99
Literature�� 102
Contents xv
5 Teaching – Between Attention and Delivery�� 103

5.1 Responsible Teaching�� 104
5.1.1 An Individual and Collective Responsibility�� 105
5.2 The Teacher and Her Actions�� 108
5.2.1 Education as a Just Institution �� 109
5.3 Paying Attention in Teaching�� 110
5.4 What Is the Meaning of the ‘I Can’ of a Teacher?�� 113
5.5 Education – As a System of Delivery?�� 116
5.6 Deliberation About Education in Its Own Right �� 123
6 Teaching Toward Equity – Listening and Reading�� 127
6.1 The Teacher as Master Explicator �� 129
6.1.1 Teaching as Explaining�� 130
6.1.2 An Individualistic Approach in Teaching�� 132
6.2 Teaching as a Power Striving Towards Equity�� 133
6.2.1 Distantiation to Teaching�� 135
6.3 Teaching Towards the Other�� 137
6.3.1 To Create and Provide Time and Space
with the Other – Listening�� 138
6.3.2 Reading Action as Text – Reading Teaching �� 141
7 Education – An Institutionalisation of Teaching �� 147
7.1 Introduction to an Institutional Framing�� 148
7.2 A Necessary Critique of Ideology �� 151
7.2.1 The Necessity of Ideology�� 153
7.2.2 Identity and Socialisation�� 155
7.2.3 Ricoeur’s Three Operative Levels of Ideological
Phenomenon�� 156
7.3 Teaching as Social Actions Lived Through �� 159
7.3.1 Assessment and Judgement in Teaching
in Education�� 162
7.3.2 The Significance of a Teacher’s Freedom
as Initiative and Promise�� 166
7.3.3 Three Constitutive Rules of Rachel’s Teaching�� 168
7.4 The Necessary Freedom in the Act of Teaching�� 170
7.5 Justice – An Institutional Act of Teaching�� 174
7.5.1 The Promise of Education �� 175
8 Education: Coordination of Action – Mutual Recognition�� 179
8.1 Recognising Oneself and the Challenge of Mutual
Recognition�� 181
8.1.1 Finding a Viable Philosophical Ground
for Mutual Recognition �� 183
xvi Contents
8.2 Recognition: Love, and the Phenomenon of Filiation�� 186

8.3 Mutual Recognition – The Model of the Reciprocal
Ceremonial Gift �� 188
8.4 Living Together – Mutual Recognition Through
Teaching�� 192
8.4.1 “In Defence of School” – By Masschelein
and Simons�� 192
8.4.2 Another Approach – Making Education
Educational�� 195
Chapter 1
Introduction
Thank you for your teaching the whole class! You do really fun
thing I wish I could be in your class every year.
(Note from student to Rachel (teacher), at the end of the school
year, 2017. Writing error in original)
What does teaching mean to you? Something dreary and monotonous you were
obliged to endure, or something that engaged you and brought you into contact with
ideas and knowledge that made your imagination flourish. Maybe it was a little bit
of both. Teaching is something happening in the here and now, and teachers are
involved in teaching, but it is never limited to teachers alone. Teaching implies rela-
tionships with others, and with what is being taught. In schools, there are teachers
and students, and something: the content of teaching. Teaching always implies
learning, and learning is always intertwined with teaching in complex ways.
In this book, we address teaching as a basic action in education. We call it the
“driver” of education. We believe in the importance of addressing teaching today,
especially when teaching is harnessed and promoted in the form of pre-set instruc-
tional patterns and as part of a structure where learning is seen as something mea-
surable and as a direct outcome of teaching. We believe this makes it pertinent to
readdress what teaching is or can be (Säfström, 2017).
We call teaching an action; it is an action within the societal institution of educa-
tion. Teaching refers to an aspect of what happens within education through the
actions of teachers and students. We refer primarily to formal education, kindergar-
ten through to 12th grade, but we also address teaching in higher education. Formal
education encompasses and structures those teaching and learning processes that
are defined as important for children and youth to prepare them for future participa-
tion in society. In our perspective, education represents the institution in society that
is designed to mediate between generations. This mediation implies forms of knowl-
edge transfer from older to younger generations. We are interested in what knowl-
edge is transferred and how this transfer of knowledge happens in teaching and
learning processes, with a special emphasis on teaching. When we address knowl-
edge, or the content (subject matter) of education, we are interested in the applica-
tion of knowledge, rather than with propositional knowledge. Our perspective on
knowledge is concerned with what humans as a community need to deliberate
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

H. Hoveid, M. H. Hoveid, Making Education Educational, Contemporary
Philosophies and Theories in Education 12,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27076-6_1
2 1 Introduction
about, in terms of useful knowledge in their lives and as part of living together, and
it is less concerned about that knowledge which is defined in terms of its legitimacy,
as that which represents given truth propositions (in later chapters we will unpack
this further). By saying that education represents an institution within society, we
want to underscore the importance of this institution as a way of communication in
a cultural community, from those who have lived and learned to those who are
young and have their lives ahead of them. This also implies a level of communica-
tion beyond interpersonal interaction. We then follow Ricoeur’s understanding of an
institution as “the structure of living together as this belongs to a historical com-
munity” (1994, p. 194). This by no means implies that the older generation always
knows what knowledge might become useful for the younger generation, but it
implies the need for continuous deliberation about what knowledge should be taught
and how this knowledge is applied in education, through teaching and learning.
By saying that teaching, on the level of happening and making things happen, is
the driver of education, we address teaching as action. Teaching happens in the
communication processes between teacher, student and content. Education operates
across longer timespans and on a level of abstraction beyond the concrete happen-
ing here and now, but teaching takes place every day in classrooms across the globe.
Our concern for teaching is based on the difficult and challenging conditions under
which it operates today, and which have evolved over time. We think it is important
to discuss the actions we call teaching with respect to the impact that teachers have
on teaching. Teaching today is challenged by external claims that leave teachers
with little space for autonomy, as politicians and others, including academics, try to
influence what kind of teaching should take place. These claims seem, first and
foremost to have an interest in defining the outcomes of learning. Implicitly, these
external claims put teachers under pressure and deny them opportunities to select
and develop their own teaching practices.
Outward claims on education and hence on teaching cannot be avoided. We must
not forget that education is an institution at the centre of the social order of nations
and regions. As we suggested above, education is an institution for communicating
between generations. This view of education opens up tensions between what his-
tory and traditions should convey, and the freedom to create change. There is no
final answer in this, only the need to continuously address these tensions, and to
deliberate about the challenges this creates at both institutional and practical levels.
Our concern for teaching is also a concern for the autonomy of the teacher, who is
a representative operating in this tension between tradition and freedom. In the here
and now of teaching, in front of students, the teacher represents someone with the
authority to communicate what it takes to be a participant in a culture and what it
takes to claim one’s own freedom. This requires of the teacher that she1 also has
autonomy as someone who can act, and judge, based on her own assessments of
what she teaches and how she should teach, and consequently who she teaches. The
who of the students, their identity, is not exclusively given by their age, gender and
so called (school) maturity. If a teacher is going to have any liberating influence on
her students, she needs to take into account her students’ context and background,
1
For clarity, we use feminine for teacher (she) and masculine for student (he) throughout the text.
1.1 A Background 3
their experiences and be able to open up for who? they might become. In pedagogy
this is traditionally defined as a tension between disciplining and freedom (Dale,
1986; von Oettingen, 2017). We believe this is important to readdress, as part of the
basic paradigm of teaching as an act in the here and now, in what we might call the
presence of teaching.
1.1 A Background
We cannot discuss education and teaching without reference to a background. In the

next section we address some aspects of what influences this field today. We are not
saying that education today is in a totally new situation, since some of the tensions
between the governance of education and the freedom or autonomy of teaching are
inherent to the field as such. In addressing current developments, we focus on what
shapes the field today and what we see as an enhanced idea of governing education
through external claims. A strong theme in education policies today seem to be the
idea that education can be scientifically measured and determined, and furthermore
that education is a strategic medium for economic growth.
1.1.1 The Harnessing of Education for Economic Growth
In education today, especially in the western hemisphere but also globally, educa-
tion is under considerable pressure from organizations such as the OECD
(Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), the EU (European
Union) and the World Bank. Their worldwide influence on national policies on edu-
cation usually leads to calls for better efficiency and streamlining. Furthermore,
within this discourse, the overall objective of education is mostly seen as economic
growth. As a counter position, we argue for less efficiency and streamlining in edu-
cation, and more consideration for individual teachers and students, for the collec-
tive of students and teachers, and for the social and natural environment.
Changing education from a system of responses to outward claims2 and into an
education that acknowledges that it has active participants who act and suffer,3 and
who actively participate in the processes of education, does not mean that education
becomes free from claims by society. What this indicates is that the relation between
education and its environment should not be predefined, restricted or harnessed
through worldwide universal targets, commonly referred to as ‘basic skills’ (OECD,
Hanushek, & Woessmann, 2015). This text is about (re)thinking education in terms
of teaching and learning processes as a preparation for humans who live in a place,
2
I.E, The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) referred to by Stephen Ball and Pasi
Sahlberg.
3
This is an expression used by Ricoeur intend to signify that in the events of life there are things
that you can plan and act according to and other things which will happen to you.
4 1 Introduction
in a community, as a part of a society in the world. This means to think about educa-
tion as a field in its own right and not (primarily) as a tool for the development of an
economy. It means to think of education as a human endeavour – as a part of being
and the development of humanity (Hogan, 2010).
However, there are currently some persuasive arguments that education should
be a fundamental tool for ensuring the economic growth and prosperity of society
(OECD et al., 2015). These arguments include specific claims about what education
should address, commonly referred to as basic skills and core knowledge. In this
construction of education, there are predetermined references to what its ends
should be. These ends are usually prescribed in terms of curricular content knowl-
edge or basic skills that students need to master at key levels of their schooling,
supported by the scientific measurement of student attainment. The persuasiveness
and authority of this way of arguing about teaching and learning is meant to con-
vince its audience that this measured attainment represents the true output of educa-
tion systems. Under this line of argument, educational systems need to steer teaching
towards the optimization of these outputs, thereby producing optimal student learn-
ing in society. By following these principles, societies will supposedly enhance their
skills base or workforce, and will not, therefore, fall behind in the knowledge econ-
omy (Sahlberg, 2011).
How one talks about the truth in reference to education is a difficult matter. If we
accept that education could be determined by scientific claims to truth, there are two
possible lines of argument. First, there is an argument connected with the content of
education. This refers to the idea that there is some basic content, or core knowl-
edge, which everybody needs to know in order to achieve what Hirsch, Kett, and
Trefil (2002) define as “universal literacy at a very high level” (p. 2).4 This way of
arguing for the truth of education puts forward the idea of learning processes in
which students need to learn what true knowledge is. The second line of argument
about truth in education is linked to what is scientifically tested and verified and
focuses on measuring the performance of educational systems. Subsequently, it is
claimed that societies can prosper economically if one follows this scientifically
defined (true) form of education, measured through testing. Arguments along this
line are mainly about how a nation can make its education system more efficient and
more economically competitive.
Both these lines of arguments are linked to science, and science promises that it
measures truthfully.5 Furthermore, these two ways of arguing about education are
4
This idea about a core knowledge has been picked up in curriculum development by many gov-
ernments, it is seen reflected in the 2010 White Paper in the UK (Winter, 2014). There seems to be
a more or less seamless transition from core knowledge to so called basic skills according to
Sahlberg (2011).
5
The reference to science here is primarily to mathematical-scientific interpretations of science,
which is more common within natural science, but also appears in some strands of empirical
research in education, especially research-based om randomized control trials. What we indicate is
that science meaning “Wissenchaft” as an overall concept for the various fields of epistemology, is
used reductively, but at the same time taking on the meaning as if this means science in general.
1.1 A Background 5
often combined. The subsequent argument is by letting the learners6 learn the true
content, and through testing and measuring how this can be done most efficiently,
one can, according to scientific methods, compare test results from different coun-
tries and thereby determine what represents the best education quality. This way of
scientifically determining education in a society gradually undermines the possibil-
ity of democratic deliberation about education. The mathematical-scientific logic
predominant in this approach is a language from one strand of research, and it is not
immediately applicable to public deliberation. The politicians, and public opinion,
seem to take this argument about the measurement of what makes good education
as a given, and they believe in it. When important political topics in education are
discussed with reference to this internal mathematical-scientific research language,
other topics that are also internal to educational practices are usually left out of the
relevant discussions (Biesta, 2014; Biesta & Säfström, 2011). The harnessing of
education as an economic means of achieving extrinsic objectives tends to reduce
educational processes to streamlined instructional patterns.
1.1.2 A Mathematical-Scientific Approach to Education
Since the education of every new generation affects the future of society, this field
requires ongoing deliberation. Changing education into a system of scientifically
determined and measurable objectives and outputs seems to imply that one can
eliminate the need for public debate. We believe deliberations about education are
needed on a broad range of educational topics involving diverse participants.
Literally, everyone needs to be involved in debating educational practices and not
passively accept education as given or defined. Not doing so will have profound
effects on the practice of democracy in society.
The idea that the ideal form of education can be determined by mathematical-
scientific measurement is persuasive. This is because these claims seem to be objec-
tive and value-free when they arise within the confines of a ‘scientific approach’
(Ary, Jacobs, Sorensen, & Walker, 2014). Therefore, it seems as if what is stated
refers to what is true, as we addressed above. The term ‘mathematical-scientific
language’ refers to supposedly objective measurements derived from a largely
abstract set of concepts such as ‘self-efficacy’ or ‘volitional strategies’. These con-
structs derive their legitimacy from the statistical methods used to analyse results
rather than the actual experience of learners or teachers.7
As applied to education, these measurements no longer talk about individual
teachers, or students, or about concrete events in a classroom, but refer to what is
seen as objective measures, including those commonly referred to as learning
6
Students are commonly referred to as learners. This idea of learnification (Gert Biesta, 2006) has
more or less abandoned teaching as part of the equation.
7
We will return to this in the second part of Chap. 2.
6 1 Introduction
o utcomes. These measurements are promoted as universally valid, irrespective of

national or local contexts. It is as if one could tailor a suit by claiming that it needs
two arms and two legs. Most see that this represents very crude measurements for a
suit, but it is objective and mathematically truthful. In this case most people would
argue that more specific measurements are needed to make a well-tailored suit. In
the same way, the use of mathematical-scientific language abolishes all the speci-
ficities and local adjustments that are part of education. By implementing a detached
and abstract language of education, we also risk losing a public language for delib-
eration about what kind of education is needed in a given context.
We argue that the mathematical-scientific approach to education is a sign that
tells us something about the times in which we live. With the increased differentia-
tion of society comes greater specialization of professions and practices. Historically,
these differentiations and specializations have created anxiety in societies because
they resulted in the implementation of life-changing technologies. New technolo-
gies, currently digitalisation but going as far back as arable farming, usually result
in changes to working conditions. The new technologies in education promise more
effectiveness and increased prosperity for both individuals and societies. We believe
this promise needs critical scrutiny.
One example here is the now wide spreading idea that teaching and learning
should be customised and adapted to every learner, based on computerised assess-
ment of levels of attainment. This is promoted as adaptive learning. “Adaptive learn-
ing is a technology-based or online educational system that analyses a student’s
performance in real time and modifies teaching methods based on that data.” (https://
www.thetechedvocate.org/5-things-know-adaptive-learning/).8 We think it is impor-
tant to critically scrutinize what this technology does, to go behind these promises
and look at how knowledge is framed and what kind of knowledge is promoted. We
will return to this in Chap. 2.
Today there are many signs implying that a technology of educational gover-
nance is taking the place of democratic deliberations about the purpose and form of
educational practices. This gives rise to concerns about what is happening. When
the basic requirements of a democratically founded education system for all is at
stake9 a somewhat different change takes place in peoples’ lives. This situation
affects the basic living conditions of every human in a society, and it brings into
question whether education should reflect the conditions of human life and suffer-
ing, or the mathematical-scientific determinants of a system-logic.
8
We also find this same promise by one of the leading Norwegian publishing houses, Gyldendal,
saying that by using technology and adaptive learning they will provide the next generation teach-
ing and learning material https://www.gyldendal.no/grs/Aktuelt/Adaptiv-laering, We will get back
to this in Chap. 2.
9
One can of course discuss if education has ever been for all. What we imply is that the education
system by accepting that some students are not accounted for or by pushing out students who are
defined as “weak” or “drop-outs” produce systematic expulsion (see Sassen, 2014).
1.1 A Background 7
1.1.3 What Is Threatened by Universalization of Knowledge
The universalizing of knowledge is based on a division between nature and culture

that have been developed since the era of the Enlightenment. Knowledge is then
presented as a part of culture without reference to time and place. Knowledge is
understood as if it is inherent to nature, as patterns that can be extracted and defined
as existing universally. Universal knowledge is a model that presents structures that
are lawful or true. This way of objectifying knowledge made it possible to apply it
back to nature. Undeniably great advances have been made through science with
this approach to knowledge, but we are also becoming gradually aware of how this
approach to knowledge has had a damaging effect on nature and the living condi-
tions of humans, e.g. climate change.
From the perspective of universalisation as a process of rationalisation, it is often
difficult to see what belongs and has a heritage. The idea seems to be that when
something is universal it has no history, and it is as if it exists without having been
thought and deliberated about over time in a culture. However, even although sup-
posedly universal concepts have necessarily arisen from somewhere in a culture,
this has been forgotten or repressed in an eagerness to universalise. At this point, we
should emphasise that we are not declaring that the understanding we present in this
book is a purely western one, only deriving its heritage from European history, and
its American and Australian cousins. Throughout the deliberations about education
in this text, however, we, as its authors, are positioned within a western culture. This
is not because it is the only ‘right’ or ‘true’ culture, but rather because we belong to
a northern European culture and cannot speak from outside it.
When learning outcomes are interpreted as measurements of the quality of teach-
ing, and more abstractly, as a measurement of the quality of education, the interac-
tion between teachers, students and content is framed within certain delimiting
parameters. It is as if one could pre-scribe this interaction. One start talking about
‘effective’ ways of teaching. To be effective, the desired effect must be known in
advance. An industrial leader would be deemed highly ineffective if he were to
decide to continue making the same product despite falling demand.10 If the desired
effect is an improvement in PISA results then one must teach to the PISA test.
This leaves little opportunities for alternative modes of teaching (and learning).
The harnessing of education based on a mathematical-scientific system of logic has
an impact on education. We have probably not yet seen what the full effects of this
might be. The universalization of knowledge, against which education is measured,
promotes an idea of knowledge as something detached and not immediately rele-
vant to the everyday lives of people. We need to remember that what people know
does not primarily consist of universal truths, but rather what counts as local knowl-
edge in their context. This local knowledge is necessary to communicate and under-
stand individual experiences. This does not mean that universal truths are without
Cf. the saying of Henry Ford in 1939 that the only thing wrong with the Model T was that no-one
10
was buying it.

8 1 Introduction
importance, but if we insist that students need to memorise the kind of knowledge
that cannot be connected to a lived life, we also risk losing many students from
education. By founding education on this type of universalised knowledge, we risk
making education into a means for the destruction of societies and our own living
conditions.
Our description of the situation in education today, and its impact on teaching, is
a description of one historical situation out of many. In this book, we apply a histori-
cal approach by using events and other texts as our empirical historical references.
Our deliberations about these events and texts are meant to highlight what we see
happening today, but they are also meant to open up other possibilities. This histori-
cal method illustrates what can be learned from history, from what has happened,
and by this, it also initiates deliberations of an epistemological character, about
what knowledge is, what truth is and subsequently what to believe in.
1.2 A Historical Account
To underscore the western historical heritage of education, we have chosen to start

this section with a historical account. This is meant to highlight a change which
happened sometime during the transition from a religious society, where (every)one
believed in God to a partially secular society developed during the Enlightenment,
where belief in God was no longer a sufficient basis for knowing but was supplanted
by the progress of reason and truth. By telling these two stories, we want to under-
line the complexity of relations between knowledge, truth and belief.
The two accounts are telling about relations between humans, knowledge and
their environment, but they are also stories about the relation between knowledge
and truth. As we gradually try to identify some basic patterns of education, as they
are enacted in teaching and learning, we believe these stories tell us something
about relations that have had a profound impact. Another aspect of these accounts is
that they are stories told to humans, as a way of transferring knowledge about their
origins. We underline that both are stories, and in that respect, there is no difference
between them.
1.2.1 Two Stories About the Beginning
Education always has a history, it is embedded in a context, a time and a place,

which entails a sort of belonging that cannot be overlooked. The two short stories
we tell are both well-known stories about the beginning of life. They represent dif-
ferent historical eras in our western civilisation. They are two stories that place
human being(s) differently in relation to who these beings are, in relation to knowl-
edge and ultimately to their environment. These are the two stories about the begin-
ning of life that dominate in western culture.
1.2 A Historical Account 9
The first story is about how God created the world and how he created Adam and
Eve. God placed them in the Garden of Eden, but he also placed a tree in the garden.
The tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and God prohibited (wo)man
from eating the fruit from this tree. Despite the prohibition, Adam and Eve were
persuaded by the snake to eat the fruit from the tree, the apple. And, as we all know,
God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden because of their wrongdoing.
This meant that humans themselves became the masters of knowledge about judg-
ing good and evil, meaning that humans would now have to make these judgements.
At the same time, they became aware of their own nakedness, meaning that they
became aware of themselves in a new way.
In this story, knowledge was gained by doing something wrong. By the action of
doing wrong, humans put themselves in a position where they were condemned to
exile from paradise, and their lives would have to be lived in ways that obey the
divine laws if they want to regain this paradise – after death. Also, unlike all other
animals, humans had to cover themselves so that their nakedness would not show.
Being seen naked had become shameful. Through the act of seeing, shame was
produced in the human who was seen. In other words, knowledge became a source
of trouble. The faculty of seeing, gained through the tree of knowledge, is some-
thing one does from a distance. Over the course of time, seeing has become the
central paradigm or metaphorical schema (Ricoeur, 1978) for the significance of
knowledge. But knowledge in this story was something with which humans should
not have engaged. If knowledge belongs to God, the only truth is found in words
from God. In this story, a relation between knowledge and truth is made, and basi-
cally there is only one truth, presented by God. This truth is external to the human
being, something one can strive to reach by listening to the words of God and by
learning to read them.
The other story is the scientific explanation of the beginning of the universe. This
account about the beginning is a story without either God or humans. This is the
story about how the universe came into existence through a big bang, and how life
on earth has evolved from simple organisms to the Homo sapiens we are today. This
is an account about how the earth and different species came into existence and
evolved over billions of years, up until today. It places Homo sapiens at the end of a
long evolutionary chain, but also establishes us as a superior species. This superior-
ity is derived from the fact that as humans we are the ones who can tell this story
about the beginning of time and the development of the universe. This superiority of
the Homo sapiens is a story about how they are different from all other species, and
how they are in some way able to control their own environment.11
These two stories are very different, but they are both about the beginning of his-
tory (time), about the creation of the world and human life and human’s relation to
knowledge. Both stories relate to knowledge, and in the Christian story, knowledge
is placed outside of the human. Through the disavowal of the prohibition from God,
11
One can of course argue that the idea of the superiority of man is just as much an idea derived
from religion. Our point here is that the “nature culture” divide, currently contested by post-
humanist theories, gave superiority to man as a species who were superior to other species.
10 1 Introduction
knowledge became a part of the human body and life. In this perspective, the emer-
gence of the inquiring human, seeking knowledge, is something that should have
been avoided, but the humans were disobedient. In this story there is only one truth
represented by God, who is above all that is human. What human beings can do,
after having left the Garden of Eden is to live their lives worthy of the appraisal of
God, the Truth.
Later and historically after the western Christian story, a scientific explanation
appears. The scientific story places knowledge differently, here it is part of its own
foundation. This is knowledge about the universe, and about evolution and nature,
perceived as something transcendental that the human can uncover. The external
environment challenges the human curiosity to know more. Having knowledge as a
foundation entails a strong belief in the methodology of science and its possibilities
of uncovering the enigmas of the world and the universe. In telling this story, there-
fore, a relation between knowledge and truth is stated. Here truth is presented as the
reality of knowledge, as a representation of universal truth. This is a story about the
beginning. In this story, truth is also external to the human being, but it can be
reached by using a scientific method.
So, where are these stories taking us? The relation between knowledge, truth and
belief that can be read into the two stories about the beginning of time are relations
at the centre of the symbolic representation of education. With the rise of the
Enlightenment the language of knowledge and human capabilities superseded the
language of God’s words and the human destiny that marked the middle ages. This
filled western culture with a hope for a better future (in this life). At the beginning
of the Enlightenment era, there was a very strong conviction amongst its pioneers in
what this new language of knowledge and truth could impart. There was a sort of
optimism connected with a belief in knowledge that would facilitate new advances
through science and the acquisition of new technologies that would provide
increased prosperity. Science produced an alternative answer to the question “what
to believe?” although not everyone chose to accept it. What one should not forget is
that this quest for prosperity was based on a colonial mentality towards nature and
towards non-Christian peoples.12
However, this mentality emerged at the confluence of the two stories rather than
out of one or the other. We argue that both these stories have had an influence on
education (in the west) since they are stories about dominant understandings of the
beginning of time and the relation between (wo)man, knowledge and truth. This
transition has had an impact on the major institutions of society. Education in west-
ern civilization has changed from a position of condemnation of scientifically
acquired knowledge to a position where this kind of knowledge has become the
grounding of the social order, as a dominant system of explanation in the culture.
Western societies have changed their social order from building on the church’s
system of Truth as given as the primary institution (Middle Ages) to the scientific
12
Nature was understood as an infinite resource and it also included territories inhabited by so-
called uncivilised savages.
1.2 A Historical Account 11
system of truth as continually observed and tested (from the era of enlightenment or
the Age of Reasoning), which can also be interpreted as the belief system that has
influenced education.
1.2.2 Education; Knowledge and Truth
As we already stated, the two stories may seem very different, but when we look at
the relation they both create between the human way of living and truth, they are
quite similar. In both, the relation between human acts and truth is perceived as
something external to the human being. It is this belief in truth as something humans
can uncover and acquire that, we argue, has had an impact on education. Knowledge
understood as a representation of truth “out there” has given rise to a way of teach-
ing as a way of transferring the truth of what is known, preferably by teachers, to
those who need this knowledge, i.e. students. This way of defining knowledge
through external truth claims can explain why the model of teaching as a master
explicator is so persistent. A master explicator is an expression derived from
Rancière (1991). (We will discuss this in more detail in Chap. 6). This has produced
a relation to knowledge in education known as a system of re-production, where
memorisation and repetition of given truth claims (propositional knowledge) have
become the main objective. As we already mentioned, there are renewed strong
winds blowing towards this kind of education.
The two stories also underline the role of belief systems. We argue that not just
the religious story, but also the story of our scientific origin is based on belief. In our
interpretation, there is no real interruption between the type of education that was
earlier performed by the church, based on belief in God and the scripture as an
expression of the Truth, and the type of education that teaches belief in a scientific
system based around (scientific) propositions that represent the truth. Education is a
powerful agent in terms of enrolling students into this scientific belief in truth, and
as long as criticism of this aspect of the education system fails to make any head-
way, it persists. Let us provide a short anecdote to exemplify this. Who has not been
told, when struggling with homework or other tasks in school that you need to show
endurance and not give up, that one day, this (e.g. mathematical) knowledge will be
useful? Many of us who have lived a long life now know that we had to memorise
facts and answers based on knowledge that we did not need. But being submissive
to the system did help, by opening doors that otherwise would have been closed.
Our point is, however, that these doors are closed for many students by the nature of
this kind of teaching.
With these two stories, we have provided a historical account about the transition
from a society built on a Christian belief to a secular belief in science. The two sto-
ries position human life in relation to knowledge in a historic perspective. We high-
light the ways in which this has influenced education and teaching as a way of
structuring education according to a mathematical-scientific approach that favours
the search for universal truths.
12 1 Introduction
Let us now conclude this introduction and move on to a description of what we

are aiming for with this book, and how we have built our arguments and delibera-
tions. With this first part of the introduction about the background and the historical
account, we have criticised the way in which science is used to make truth claims
about what is good education. We argue that the mathematical-scientific approach
represents a limited field of science that tends to reduce education into measurable
entities, which can be compared across the education systems of nation states. In
this book we will explore what teaching, the driver of education as we call it, can
accomplish if it is given more freedom and space to evolve, based on the assess-
ments and judgements of individual teachers who collaborate with other teachers
and with students. Based in an idea of an education for all, we argue for the impor-
tance of upholding this space for individual and collective autonomy in education.
1.3 Making Education Educational
The title of this book is, Making Education Educational. A Reflexive approach to
teaching. We have already stated that we see education as an institution that com-
municates between generations, and we have defined teaching as a driver of educa-
tion. Teaching is what happens here and now, teaching refers to actions. The title of
the book points to education as something more than a means for attaining objec-
tives external to education, such as the economic prosperity of nations.
Making education educational refers to something that we think is needed in
terms of changing some of the current emphases in education. Over the last two
decades or more,13 the development of education has been geared towards more
abstract knowledge and the idea of standardised testing and assessment at all levels
of the system. This kind of education, we argue, provide teachers with very little
space to work with teaching. In this model, teaching seems to be restrained and is
driven by predefined content, where the teacher is seen as a “delivery agent” who
has the power to express what constitutes true knowledge and what will count as
defined learning outcomes. In other words, teachers are supposed to make education
more effective.
When we argue for an education that is educational, we say that education needs
to become an education for all. This means an education which takes into account
the plurality of human ways of living on this planet Earth, and which considers and
opens up to criticism of the economically driven exploitation of nature, largely
based on western ideas and attitudes. Making education educational argues for
another relation to knowledge in education and suggests that our understanding of
13
Education policies have changed over the last decades and been influenced by different ideas of
child centred or teacher centred pedagogies. When we here talk about a re-affirmation of theoreti-
cal knowledge in education – this has largely been influenced by the ideas of new public manage-
ment and by the introduction of high stakes testing regimes such as PISA and TIMSS, from the
beginning of the 1990s.
1.3 Making Education Educational 13
education has to expand beyond an instrumental and economically driven perspec-

tive. It opposes the functions that have made education into a system of belief in
universal truth claims. It should also clear the way for an understanding of knowl-
edge as more diverse and as something requiring more deliberation within the vari-
ous contexts where this knowledge is applied. When the content of teaching is made
more relevant within a cultural context, in relation to teachers and students, then
universal and abstract theoretical knowledge must be pushed back. For most people
there is very little need for the kinds of theoretical knowledge that are fundamental
to many sciences, especially some of the mathematical and natural sciences as they
are framed through their respective curricula. When students are forced to learn
theoretical algorithms and abstractions, what happens for many students is that they
are thrown off course, and instead start to reject both the need for education and the
need to acquire knowledge.
To exemplify this, let us use an example form Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada).
Here, they have elaborated a program for making the content of science education
also reflect First Nation and the Indigenous worldview and knowledge in the sci-
ence curriculum.14 This way of opening for other worldviews and ways of knowing
has also prompted criticism of the way some of the current curriculum in mathemat-
ics is oriented towards very theoretical knowledge. One of the professors leading
this project, Glen Aikenhead, found that a math’s textbook spent over a 100 pages
on calculating interest rates. Doing this math involves fairly complicated theory,
which leads students who are not interested to abandon it, resulting in a lack of
knowledge about what happens when you lend or borrow money. This math curricu-
lum was basically oriented toward learning how to do mathematical equations, not
so much towards what implications for example interest rates have on the money
you lend or on those obligations you have accepted for your future life when you
accept a loan. Today there are algorithms developed into apps (applications) on your
smartphone that can easily help you find interest rates. Why not just learn to use
these and some basics about percentage and discuss with students what can happen
when they lend or borrow money? This kind of practical curriculum is what
Aikenhead and colleagues have developed for 6–12 graders in Saskatchewan. In this
new, culturally sensitive curriculum, different scenarios can be discussed, depen-
dent on the social environment, employment rates etc. In other words, knowledge
has been made relevant to the culture in which it is to be applied. This way of apply-
ing knowledge would be useful for most students. The more theoretical knowledge
involved in learning to do abstract and complex mathematical equations will only be
useful for some students who intend to study math as a discipline. Those who have
this kind of theoretical interest will most likely pursue this independently of what is
taught in school. So, there is really no reason for everyone to try to learn to do a type
of math they will never use.
This text is primarily discussing teaching. We have situated teaching as a driver
of education. In other words, what we argue is that what happens here and now in
14
See for instance: https://www.usask.ca/education/documents/profiles/aikenhead/enhancing-
school-science.pdf or: https://www.usask.ca/education/documents/profiles/aikenhead/index.htm
14 1 Introduction
teaching will define the outcome of education in the longer run. What we also mean
to say by this is that teaching should be better geared towards meaningful learning
that can be applied in the cultural context where the education takes place. Without
this kind of culturally sensitive education, we risk alienating a majority of students
along with the communities they live in. In the end, this could become an education
alienated from society and democracy.
1.3.1 A Didactic of Teaching
“General didactics is the pedagogy of teaching” (von Oettingen, 2017, p. 195).15

Our arguments belong to a Scandinavian tradition of pedagogy. We will not enter
into a discussion about the many difficulties of defining this discipline today. What
we want to signal is that when we discuss teaching, we do so in line with von
Oettingen’s statement that this belongs to general didactics. Also, Biesta’s book,
The Rediscovery of Teaching (2017), address the need to re(dis)cover teaching.
Although we address teaching through a different lens than Biesta – we do sympa-
thize with the need to re(dis)cover teaching. But in our take on teaching it cannot
ever become what it was. So our approach is more about re-framing the action
itself – to constantly readdress what teaching does. In the next part we introduce a
model for an understanding of teaching as relational (Säfström, 2017), which repre-
sents our take on teaching.
The second part of the title of this book: A reflexive approach to teaching indi-
cates on the one hand that teaching is something one does, an action. One way of
looking at teaching is through the relations between teacher, student and content, or
subject knowledge. A model encompassing these three entities is called the didactic
triangle (see Fig. 1.1) (Hopmann, 1997). Where would we place teaching in this
model? In the middle, or in how teachers try to intervene between the student and
the content? Or, maybe more traditionally in the teacher’s relation to the content as
this is transferred to the student, as a one-way communication from the teacher,
through the content and on to the student, and then back to the teacher for re-
evaluation and new content to be transferred? If this is the dominant perception of
Fig. 1.1 The didactic TEACHER STUDENT(S)

triangle (Hoveid’s
interpretation)
CONTENT
Subject knowledge
15
Our translation of: “Den almene didaktik er undervisningens pædagogik”.
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Cyn. Is that so? Must have been Hepsy Sawyer. Hum! Mighty free
about advising people to go to other people’s houses. What did she
say?
Peter (doubtfully). You really wish me to tell you?
Cyn. (grimly). Yes, every word.
Peter. Let me think. She said inasmuch as you had been foolish
enough to take in one poor silly imitation of a man, you might be
crazy enough to accommodate as big a fool as I appeared to be.
Cyn. Indeed? To pay her for that I will take you. If I’m going to
have the reputation of running a lunatic asylum I might as well have
plenty of inmates. Who be you?
Peter. Peter Pretzel Pomeroy. (Bows low.)
Cyn. For the land——
Peter. From Brookline, Mass.
Cyn. What are you going to do here? Write poetry stuff about the
sand dunes and the ocean?
Peter. Alas, no! I am no poet. I am an agent for the Holton-
Holland Co. I am demonstrating a useful little household article,
called the Ladies’ Little Charm. No housekeeper can possibly be
happy without one.
(Takes a clothes sprinkler from his pocket and shows it to her.)
Cyn. For the land—what is it? Looks like the top of a pepper-pot.
Peter. You have never seen one?
Cyn. (hesitating). No-o, I guess not. What is it for?
Peter. Oh, joy! Oh, bliss! Oh, rapture! They haven’t reached Bay
Point yet. I’m the first on hand. This, dear madam, is a clothes
sprinkler. (Takes a bottle from his pocket.) If you will just let me fill
this with water, I will show you how it works. (Takes pitcher from
table.) Is this water or champagne? Water, of course! (Fills the bottle
and puts on the sprinkler-top. He then places a handkerchief on
table.) Spread your clothes on the table and sprinkle lightly, wets
them all over the same. It can likewise be used to sprinkle the floor
(illustrating) before sweeping. To water the flowers!
Cyn. For the land sakes, stop! There won’t be a dry spot in the
house!
Peter. Likewise to shampoo the hair.
(Waves the bottle over his own head and then over hers.)
Cyn. (desperately). If you will stop I will buy one.
Peter. You, madame? Never! I give this to you from the depths of
a grateful heart. (Bows and places it on the table.) Just show it to
your friends. (Abruptly changing the subject.) What room do I
occupy?
Cyn. Why, come right up and see! (Goes toward the stairs
followed by Peter.) The best room is taken but I guess I can satisfy
you maybe.
Peter. Not the least doubt of it, madame. To be fortunate enough
to secure a room in your house is like finding the dime in a birthday
cake.
[They exeunt by stairs.
(Slight pause. Ariel enters, c., in a white linen dress, with a cap
and sweater.)
Ariel. Miss Cynthy! Miss Cynthy!
Enter Lee, c.
Lee (stopping and regarding her in astonishment). Ariel!
Ariel (doubtfully, as she turns toward him). Why—why—it’s Lee,
isn’t it? (As he moves toward her.) Why, I can’t believe it can be!
Lee (taking her hand). And I can’t believe it is you! Why, Ariel, how
do you happen to be here?
Ariel. My eyes are troubling me and I had to come home.
Lee. Home? My heaven, Ariel, is Bay Point your home?
Ariel. Yes. Didn’t you remember?
Lee. No. I remembered it was Cape Cod but I didn’t remember the
town, and to think that I have come to your home! Ariel, it seems
years since I have seen you.
Ariel. Why did you leave New Haven without seeing any of your
friends?
Lee. I know what you must think of me. Things looked too black
against me, but, Ariel, I am not as black as I was painted. I have
come down here to start all over again. I have been told that I have a
brilliant future ahead of me along a certain line. I have splendid
opportunity, and I am going to make good or die. Do you understand
why I’m so anxious to make good? Did you understand before—
before the smash came, how much I cared for you? And I dared to
hope that you cared a little, too. Did you, Ariel?
Ariel (breathlessly). Oh, you mustn’t talk this way!
Lee. Can’t you give me just a word of hope to encourage me to
work? I will never bother you. I will never ask anything of you until I
prove to you that I am straight. Ariel, didn’t you care just a little?
Ariel (softly). Yes.
Lee (joyfully). Ariel!
Ariel. Oh, why did I say that? I have no right to offer you any
encouragement.
Lee (stepping toward her). Ariel——
Ariel. Hush! I hear some one coming. (Suddenly.) Why, Lee, I
was so surprised to see you that I never thought. Have you taken
this house? Has Miss Cynthy gone?
Lee. Gone? Of course not! I am boarding with her.
Ariel. Boarding with Miss Cynthy? Why, you can’t be! She was
going away.
Enter Cyn. by stairs.
Lee. Well, here she is to answer for herself.
Cyn. Oh, it’s you, Arey? I wondered who was talking down here.
Do you know Mr. Gordon?
Ariel. I have met him before. He went to Yale and my school is
near there, you know. We have met at—at some social affairs.
Cyn. (delighted). Well, now, that’s real pleasant, ain’t it? I have
taken another boarder, Mr. Gordon. I hope you don’t mind.
Lee. Not at all. The more the merrier. Who is it?
Cyn. I don’t believe I can ever remember what he said. It’s Peter, I
am sure of that much, and he sells clothes sprinklers for a living.
Ariel (amused). What?
Lee (astounded). Good lord!
Cyn. Real kind o’ comical, ain’t it?
Lee. I should say it was!
Ariel (taking up the bottle on the table). Is this one of them?
Cyn. Yes, and it works real kind of cute, too.
Lee (looking at it). Good-night! Oh, Miss Tinker, I got my car up
here and I was going to ask you if it would be all right to run it into
this little house out back here?
Cyn. Why, yes, if it’s big enough.
Lee. Just about right, I think. Thank you. I will see you later, Miss
Freeman.
Ariel. Good-morning, Mr. Gordon. (Lee exits, c. Ariel goes to
Cyn. and throws her arms around her.) Oh, Miss Cynthy, you aren’t
going after all! Wasn’t it dreadful sudden, your taking Mr. Gordon?
Cyn. Well, it was rather unexpected. He was hunting around in the
fog last night for a place to stay, and he came here, and after he got
here he didn’t want to leave.
Ariel. Wasn’t that wonderful?
Cyn. (with a curious smile). Yes, I think it was kind of.
Ariel. I’m so glad. I never needed you so much in my life as I do
now.
Cyn. What’s the matter?
Ariel. Nat Williams came home last night. It—it seems that before
he sailed this last time father about the same as promised him that I
would marry him after I graduate.
Cyn. Arey, what are you talking about?
Ariel. What am I going to do?
Cyn. As you please, of course. Your father is crazy.
Ariel. It’s so hard. I want to please father and there isn’t a thing in
the world against Nat. He is a good man and doing well.
Cyn. There’s lots of good men doing well in this world, but that
don’t make it out you got to marry them all.
Ariel. I just can’t make up my mind to marry Nat.
Cyn. Of course you can’t. (Decidedly.) You are too young to marry
any one.
Ariel. Why, lots of girls younger than I am marry.
Cyn. Well, because some folks is foolish——(Suddenly stops and
looks at her.) Land o’ goshen, Arey, there ain’t some one you want to
marry, is there?
Ariel (faintly). I didn’t say so.
Cyn. Who is it?
Ariel. No one in Bay Point, Miss Cynthy. And it can’t ever come to
anything. He is just the kind that father wouldn’t approve of.
Cyn. I never knew it to fail.
Ariel. And I’m so unhappy. (Begins to cry.)
Cyn. (dryly). Of course! Dyin’ of a broken heart!
Ariel (reproachfully). Why, Miss Cynthy!
Cyn. (going to her and putting her arms around her). There, child,
you know I’m sorry for you. Only you’re so young, it seems so kind of
foolish for you to be talking about marrying any one.
Ariel. I haven’t got any mother—and—and—(Ber. enters, c.,
unnoticed) dad’s going against me, and—if—if—you don’t stand by
me I’ll die!
Cyn. There, child——(Suddenly notices Ber., who is trying to
make a quiet exit.) Oh, it’s you, Cap’n?
Ariel (springing to her feet). Oh!
Cyn. It’s Cap’n Berry!
Ariel (trying to choke back her tears). Good-morning.
Cyn. Go in my room, dearie. [Exit Ariel, l., hastily.
Ber. (awkwardly). I’m sorry I happened——
Cyn. That’s all right, Cap’n. I guess you think women folks are
always crying.
Ber. That’s their privilege and safety valve. There’s times when
the men would like durned well to cry, but they swear instead. Wha-
what did she mean about her—her father’s going against her?
Cyn. Oh, she didn’t just realize what she was saying. I don’t
believe Abner would ever really go against her. He worships the
ground she walks on, but he is acting queer all of a sudden.
Ber. What’s the trouble? Of course ’tain’t none of my business,
but sometimes an outsider can help, unexpected like, you know.
Cyn. I’m afraid no outsider can help in this. It looks like some
trouble between Arey and Abner. He’s set on her marrying Nat
Williams.
Ber. Cap’n Williams that sails for Howland Gordon o’ Boston?
Cyn. Yes.
Ber. Well, he’s said to be a likely sort o’ chap, ain’t he?
Cyn. Oh, yes, but you don’t believe in a girl’s being forced to
marry a man she doesn’t care for, do you, even if he is a likely sort of
chap?
Ber. Is Cap’n Abner forcing her?
Cyn. I don’t know as he is exactly, but he’s terrible set on it, an’ I
don’t see why. He’s had two spells before this of trying to induce her
to say “yes” to Nat. It’s terrible queer. He tries to make her feel that
she owes everything, even her life, to him, and it’s her duty to obey.
Ber. (frowning). Oh, he does, eh? Then she knows she ain’t really
Freeman’s daughter?
Cyn. Oh, yes, she knows it, but she doesn’t realize the difference.
She wasn’t more’n a year old when he found her.
Ber. Never had no clues as to whom her own folks was?
Cyn. No, I guess not, although I think I’ve heard tell he has some
things that were on her, a locket or something, I don’t remember
what. He’s been a good father to her all these years. I can’t imagine
what ails him now. Well, there’s lots o’ queer things in this world, and
lots of unhappiness. (Suddenly.) Well, if I’m going to get dinner for—
land, Cap’n Berry, I forgot to tell you. I’ve taken another boarder.
Ber. Well, you are rushing things, ain’t you? Say, Miss Tinker, do
you know anything about the young chap you took in last night?
Cyn. No, not a thing!
Ber. Seems a good sort of fellow?
Cyn. He certain does. He’s got a real taking way with him.
(Alarmed.) What’s the matter, Cap’n Berry?
Ber. Well, of course there was considerable excitement in town
last night, and of course a stranger always causes a lot of talk, and
his coming mysterious like——
Cyn. (interrupting). There wasn’t nothing mysterious about it fur’s I
can see.
Ber. Well, some people look at it different, especially Hepsy
Sawyer. That woman’s got a northeast gale blowing off the end of
her tongue fresh every hour. Anyway they’ve got it going that this
chap you’ve took in may be concerned, and I expect you will have
the whole crowd down here in a few minutes.
Cyn. My land, Cap’n Berry, that boy never had nothin’ ter do with it
in this world. He is as innocent as—as—as a little ba-a lamb. Cap’n
Berry, you don’t believe that I did wrong in taking him in? You know
you—you——
Ber. Yes, I know, and I think you done jest right. I know you
wouldn’t have taken a stranger in if it hadn’t been for what I said, and
don’t you worry a mite, Miss Cynthy, no matter what any one says, I
will stand by you. Where is your boarder? I’d like to have a look at
him.
Cyn. He’s out in the back yard trying to get his car into father’s old
carpenter shed. Come out and see him.
[Exit, r., followed by Ber.
Enter Lee, c. He wears his raincoat. Peter comes down-stairs.
Lee (joyfully). Well, old man, you got in?
Peter (with dignity). Certainly. I should worry but what I could get
into any place where they would take you. Have you heard the
excitement in town this morning?
Lee. No, I have been up shore after the car. What’s going on?
Peter. Seven pipes were stolen last night.
Lee. Seven? Why, you said three.
Peter. I said I took three.
Lee (puzzled). Well—but——(Staggered.) You don’t mean to say
some one else look the other four?
Peter (looking surprised). Why, I supposed you were the some
one else!
Lee. Well, you have another think. I know absolutely nothing about
it. I left that part of the job to you, and why—great heavens, Pete!
Seven pipes? Just the number we planned on taking!
Peter. Exactly. That’s why I thought you had a hand in it.
Lee. But what do you make of it?
Peter. I don’t make. We wanted a mystery. We’ve got it! The
sooner we get to work the better.
Lee. That’s right.
Peter. I’ll go out and see if I can hear something more.
Lee. Good idea, but whatever you do, don’t let on that you know
me.
Peter. Don’t fret about that. I never saw you before.
(Exit, c. Lee looks after him a second and exits by stairs.)
Enter Nat Williams, c. He is tall, dark complexioned, about thirty-
five, and rather self-important. He has the appearance of always
getting what he goes after. He glances about. Ariel enters l.
Nat (rushing forward and taking her hand). Ariel! I have been
chasing all over Bay Point after you. Hepsy said she thought you
came down here. I couldn’t wait to see you again.
Ariel (with an effort). How do you do, Nat?
Nat. I couldn’t realize my good luck when I heard you were at
home, although of course I am sorry about your eyes. I wish you
would tell me that you are glad to see me.
Ariel. Why, of course I am always glad to see old friends.
Nat. That is too impersonal. I want you to say you are glad to see
me.
Ariel. You are somewhat exacting, aren’t you?
Nat. Ariel, don’t talk to me that way. I can’t stand it. You know how
much I care, and you must try to care, too.
Ariel. Must?
Nat. You understand what I mean.
Ariel (wearily). Haven’t we been all over this before?
Nat. We have several times, and we are going over it again and
again. I have thought of you all this home trip, little dreaming that I
was coming straight to you. I thought I should have to wait until
summer before I saw you again. Now that I haven’t got to wait I don’t
intend to lose one minute.
Ariel (impatiently). I shouldn’t say you did.
Nat. There is no one in my way. I’ll make you care for me.
Ariel (angrily). Will you, indeed? Do you expect to do it by
yourself? I guess you will have to call for help.
Nat. Your father will give me all the help I need.
Ariel. This is something he cares nothing about.
Nat (growing angry). You know better than that.
Ariel. Oh, what’s the use? We always quarrel. Why start it again?
Enter Abner, c.
Nat. Captain Freeman, would you mind saying to your daughter
what you said to me last night?
Ariel. Oh, never mind about it. Don’t trouble yourself, father. I can
imagine what you said, and I can be just exactly as happy if I don’t
hear it.
Abner. Ariel, I don’t want you to go to acting this way with Nat.
You just make him mad, and I don’t wonder. Sometimes you are
enough to make St. Peter swear. Nat wants to marry you, not now,
but when you graduate. I don’t see any earthly reason why you
shouldn’t promise to. Nat’s a fine fellow and doing well. You haven’t
anything against him?
Ariel. Certainly not, but I don’t care to promise myself to any one.
Graduation is quite a long ways off yet.
Abner. Ariel, I don’t very often ask anything of you. I don’t
remember that I have ever asked any very special thing. Don’t you
think it’s your duty to do this first thing that I ask?
Ariel. Oh, dad, how can you make such a request in such a way?
(Bursts into tears and runs out, r.)
Abner. Well, Nat, this looks mighty foolish to me. If a girl won’t,
she won’t.
Nat. Do you intend to let her do as she pleases?
Abner. Let her? Good lord, do you expect me to force her into a
marriage with you?
Nat. Don’t you feel that you owe me some recompense?
Abner. Well, great heaven, won’t anything but Ariel satisfy you?
Nat. No.
Abner (angrily). Well, I must say you——
Nat (quietly). Captain Freeman, what were you doing in the post-
office last night?
Abner (starting). In the post-office?
Nat (pointedly). Yes, long after it closed?
Abner (growing angry). What do you mean?
Nat. Just what I say. I know you were there. There is no use in
denying it.
Abner (beside himself). Why, you—do you mean to insinuate——
Nat (calmly). Just explain your presence there. (Slight pause.
Abner remains silent.) You didn’t find what you were looking for, did
you? I was before you, Captain Freeman. Before I sailed this last
time, I made a midnight visit to the post-office myself, but I covered
my tracks. I think something must have scared you off before you
had a chance to pick things up.
Abner. You dare to tell me that you entered the post-office?
Nat. Oh, yes, you won’t say anything about it. If you did I should
be obliged to show the papers I went after, and you wouldn’t have
any one see those papers for a farm.
Abner (desperately). I don’t know what you are driving at.
Nat. Oh, yes, you do. See here, Captain Freeman, all in this world
I want is your influence with Ariel. This is a mean way to get it, I’ll
admit, but I want the girl and I don’t care how I get her.
Abner. And if I refuse to bother Ariel any more what is it you are
threatening?
Nat. Why, I don’t know as I have exactly threatened anything.
Threatened isn’t a nice word. Of course you know that you owe as
much to Miss Tinker as you did to my father. I don’t know exactly
how you would come out if the thing was to go to court, but as long
as Miss Cynthy is in need of money it looks to me like a question of
honor on your part. I understand she is about to leave town to look
for work.
Abner (snapping the words out). She isn’t going! (Beside himself
again.) If you think you can frighten me you are mistaken! I
absolutely deny that I was inside the post-office last night.
Nat. Oh, well, of course if you are going to take that stand I shall
——
Abner (warningly). Hush!
Enter Lem. and Obad., c.
Lem. Oh, you are here, Cap’n Freeman?
Obad. (all out of breath). We’ve hunted all over town for yer. Fer
the love of John Paul Jones, stay put fer a while until we see if we
can get at any facts to help us.
Lem. What’s become o’ Cap’n Cranberry, an’ where’s Miss
Cynthy?
Enter Cyn. and Ber., r. Ariel enters, r.
Ber. We’re here, Lem. What’s the matter?
Enter Hep., c., dragging after her Sam., who is not at all willing to be
dragged.
Hep. Lem, here’s Sammy! I’ve chased all over town and I declare
ter goodness I’m——
Lem. Never mind where you’ve chased, as long as you got him.
Hep. And I had to drag him every step of the way. He wuz bound
he would not come.
Sam. (fearfully). I ain’t got nothin’ ter tell, dad!
Lem. You will tell all right if I get after you.
Sam. You always said not to tell things, an’ I ain’t got nothin’ to tell.
Hep. Ain’t he the beatenest young one!
Ber. (picking Sam. up). You keep him frightened to death all the
time. He will tell all about who took the pipe from him when you get
ready to hear it.
Lem. Miss Cynthy, you hev taken a boarder?
Cyn. I have taken two.
Hep. Two? You don’t ever in this world mean that you have taken
in that crazy——
Lem. Hepsy! Will you hush up? I don’t mean that fellow that’s just
come to town this morning selling clothes sprinklers. I mean that
fellow who was prowling around Bay Point last night in the fog.
Cyn. (indignantly). Who says he was prowling?
Lem. I say so. Prowling around——
Ber. Oh, belay there, Lem! There weren’t nothin’ a stranger could
do last night but prowl around. It was hard enough for us folks that
lives here all the time.
Lem. Well, maybe so, Cap’n, but we hev got to inquire what he
was doing. (Importantly.) In fact we got to inquire into everybody’s
business that was out last night. It ain’t so much those durned pipes,
though it certainly beats tunket who took them, but the post-office
was broken into, you must remember, and Obed’s safe was broke
open.
Obad. (excited). Gosh all fog horns, yes! And, Abner, I found your
pipe on the floor right by the safe.
Abner (staggered). What? I don’t believe it!
Obad. (handing him a pipe). Yes, sir! Yours all right! I know your
pipe as well as I do my own.
Enter Lee by stairs, unnoticed.
Abner (breathing hard). Do you—do you mean to say that you
think that I——
(Glances at Nat and stops abruptly.)
Lem. Why, o’ course not! The idee, Cap’n Freeman! We know you
ain’t in no ways concerned, but don’t you see? It goes to show that
the fellow that stole the pipes broke into the post-office?
Abner (with a sigh of relief). Oh!
Lem. And now I want to see this boarder of yours, Miss Cynthy.
Lee (stepping forward). Am I the one you wish to see?
Lem. I guess you be. I suppose you have heard tell all about what
happened in town last night?
Lee (bowing). Yes.
Lem. Well, we want to find out everything we can ’bout sech a
mystery, an’ we feel obleeged to inquire about any strangers who
came ter town last night.
Lee. I see. Well, my name is Lee Gordon. I came down the Cape
from Boston in my auto. I am going to do some sketching.
Lem. So? Want tew know! Wal, can you inform me if you went
near the post-office last night?
Lee. I may have. I don’t know.
Lem. Do you know your glove when you see it? Them’s your
initials? L. G.?
(Hands Lee a heavy driving glove.)
Lee. Yes, this is my glove. Where did you find it?
Obad. (dramatically). I found it on the post-office steps.
All. What?
Lee. I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t be surprised to know that I visited
the meeting-house. I couldn’t tell where I was going.
Ber. Of course you couldn’t. This is all foolishness.
Lee. Of course if you want to believe I was mixed up in the robbery
just because you found my glove on——
(He is carrying his raincoat on his arm and as he speaks he
impatiently flings it over onto the other arm and the pipe which
Sam. put in the pocket drops to the floor.)
Hep. My land! What’s that?
Obad. (at the top of his voice). It’s a pipe!
(Lem. picks it up and examines it. Lee looks at it in astonishment.
Sam. looks frightened and begins to edge toward the door.)
Ber. Well, by tunket, hasn’t the fellow a right to own a pipe?
Lem. He has sartain, one o’ his own, but I can’t no wise see that
he has any right to yourn, Cap’n Berry.
(Hands it to Ber., who is completely staggered.)
All. What? Did you ever? It is! Cap’n Cranberry’s!
Sam. (thinking things are moving in a manner favorable to him,
opens sugar bowl). And here’s another in Miss Cynthy’s sugar bowl!
All. What?
Cyn. (dropping into a chair). Mercy sakes!
Hep. Land, Cynthy’s overcome!
(Grabs clothes sprinkler from table and sprinkles Cyn.)
Lem. (to Lee). Wal, now what hev you got to say, young man?
Lee. Absolutely nothing. I haven’t words equal to this occasion.
Lem. What room did he sleep in last night, Miss Cynthy?
Cyn. (sufficiently recovered to be indignant). I shan’t tell you. He
never had nothing to do with this in the world, never!
Lee (gratefully). That’s mighty kind of you, Miss Tinker, but it is
also foolish. (To Lem.) My room is up-stairs, the first on the right.
[Exit Lem. by stairs.
Obad. Wal, I cal’late there ain’t much more ter be said.
Ariel (stepping forward). Well, there is a whole lot more. Mr.
Gordon is a friend of mine.
All. What? He is?
Hep. Do tell!
Abner. Well, how long since?
Ariel. Quite a long time since.
Abner. Is that so? Queer I never heard of him before. Where did
you meet him?
Ariel. At a friend’s in New Haven while Mr. Gordon was at Yale.
Nat. If you knew Mr. Gordon at Yale perhaps you know how he
happened to leave college?
Ariel. Yes, I know. He left under circumstances which didn’t look
favorable to him but none of his friends believed he was at all to
blame, any more than I believe it now.
Hep. Well, do tell!
Nat. Mr. Gordon always seems to be found under circumstances
which look anything but favorable to himself.
Abner. How do you happen to know this fellow, Nat?
Nat. He is the son of Howland Gordon, the man I sail for. After he
was expelled from Yale he went to work for his father. He is just
leaving his father under circumstances which don’t look favorable.
(Lem. comes down the stairs.)
Obad. Find anything, Lem?
Lem. Yes, by Crismus, three more pipes! (Shows them.)
All. What? You don’t say? Let’s see!
Cyn. (overcome). My land! My land!
Hep. (applying clothes sprinkler). There, Cynthy! There!
Lem. (to Lee). Well, young man, I guess I’ll arrest you!
Lee (with a shrug of his shoulders). All right! Go ahead!
Ber. (wrathfully). Yes, go ahead, and I’ll bail him out!
Lee. I’ll admit that you have plenty of evidence against me, but
here comes a man who can at least explain my connection with
those pipes. (Points to the pipes in Lem.’s hand.)
Enter Peter, c.
Peter (stopping short and looking at the assembled company in
astonishment). By my faith, I didn’t know it was old home week!
Lem. (to Peter). Young man, what do you know about this fellow?
Peter (innocently, pointing to Lee). What do I know? About him?
Absolutely nothing! I never saw him before in my life!
(Lem. claps his hand on Lee’s shoulder and walks him to the door.
Cyn. is overcome and Hep. again applies the clothes sprinkler.)
CURTAIN
ACT III
SCENE.—A room in Abner’s old fish-house, supposed to be on the
shore. There is one exit, l. An old-fashioned bureau, r. A doll’s
house. Some rag rugs on the floor. Some old chairs. An old
lounge, l., front. A hammock. On a stage where it is possible
there should be a large door in the center with a view of the
water beyond. An impression of the room being up-stairs would
add to the scene.
(As the curtain rises, Sam. stands by the exit listening.)
Abner (outside). Come up-stairs, Nat! (Sam. gives a frightened
look around the room and crawls under the sofa. Nat and Abner
enter.) This is a good place to talk things over. Hardly any one but
Arey ever comes up here. (If there is a door c., he throws it open.)
There’s a fine view from here. On a clear day you can see way down
to High Land. This used to be Arey’s playhouse.
Nat (looking about). Well I know that. We boys used to come up
here to tease the girls because the cake that went with the tea
parties appealed to us. It was here I fell in love with Arey. It was here
I first asked her to marry me.
Abner. I’m sorry, Nat, that Arey doesn’t care for you.
Nat. It’s plain to see now why she doesn’t care.
Abner. Nonsense!
Nat. No nonsense about it. Look at the way she took the part of
that darned little sand peep. Well, I’ll make her see what he is before
I get through.
Abner. You are crazy jealous, Nat. Don’t make a fool of yourself.
Ariel is good-hearted and impulsive, and quick to take the part of any
one who is in trouble.
Nat. She wouldn’t help me if I was dying.
Abner (impatiently). Well, perhaps she wouldn’t! Might as well say
one thing as another. It’s a waste of time and energy to argue with a
man who is madly in love and insanely jealous.
Nat. Are you going to let her take up with this little crook and throw
me over?
Abner. Crook is a strong word, Nat. The boy may have been
expelled from college, and may be in wrong with his father, but he
didn’t break into the post-office last night. I think it is more than likely
that he called there in his efforts to find a boarding place. I was
scared off by some one’s knocking on the door.
Nat (with an exclamation of satisfaction). Ah! Then you admit that
you were the one who entered the post-office?
Abner. Certainly. I don’t know how I am going to pull out, but I
can’t let this fellow face a charge of which I am guilty. How did you
know I was there?
Nat. After we had our little talk last night, I guessed you would go
there and I followed you. I thought you might be interested in looking
over Cap’n Obed’s old papers.
Abner. Yes, I was. Well, now we will face the situation. I have
several times offered you money which you have refused to take.
Nat. I’m not interested in money. I’m doing well enough. You know
what I want.
Abner. Yes, I do know. You want me to actually force my daughter
into marrying you.
Nat. Well, why not? You admit I am all right. There is no reason
why she wouldn’t be happy with me.
Abner. And in case I refuse, just what are you going to do?
Nat. Well, of course I don’t suppose you want all your old friends
and neighbors to know how you cheated my father and old Joel
Tinker, and of course now there is Miss Cynthy.
Abner. Well, I can’t see any way of giving her money without
telling the whole thing.
Nat. The land this building stands on is hers, isn’t it?
Abner. I’m not saying just what belongs to her. (Suddenly and
determinedly.) See here, Nat, if you can show me a way out of the
hole I am in, I will see what I can do with Arey.
Nat. That sounds like sense. Get Ariel to give me her promise and
I’ll hand over the papers I stole from Obed’s safe last winter, and you
will never hear another word from me.
Abner. Well, what about last night? I was a tarnation fool.
Nat. I’ll take the responsibility of it. I’ll say that I did it. I’ll hatch up
an excuse of some kind. I don’t suppose you really made away with
anything? (Laughs.)
Abner. It isn’t at all likely. Obed will find all his stuff after a while. I
couldn’t very well speak up and tell him where I put the money box.
Nat. Well, if he doesn’t find it, you can tell me, and I will tell them
where it is when I get around to a confession.
Abner. Well, that will pull young Gordon out of the post-office
business, but it doesn’t make it out he didn’t steal about six pipes.
Mine is accounted for.
Nat. Oh, Gordon is up to something. That’s the kind of a little snipe
he is. His father has nothing but trouble with him. How soon will you
see Arey?
Abner. Right off. I don’t see that we have provided any way to
straighten things out with Miss Cynthy.
Nat (easily). Well, she has managed to pull along all these years.
Why fret now? What she doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt her.
Lem. (outside). Cap’n Abner, are you up there?
Abner (going to door). Yes.
Obad. Well, for the love o’ Admiral Dewey, listen to this! (Enters,
followed by Lem.)
Lem. Say, Obed has discovered that there weren’t nothin’ took
from the post-office last night.

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Making Education Educational A

Reflexive Approach to Teaching Halvor

A Relevance-Theoretic Approach to Decision-Making in

Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching Susan

Critical Perspectives on Teaching Learning and

A Practical Psychoanalytic Guide to Reflexive Research

Essentials of Educational Psychology: Big Ideas To

Understanding Educational Psychology A Late Vygotskian

Teaching English (1978) : A Linguistic Approach First

The Resource Approach to Mathematics Education Luc

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8638

ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Maynooth University Sharon Todd

Trondheim, Norway Halvor Hoveid

2.2 Teaching for the Test – Or Is It Testing

5 Teaching – Between Attention and Delivery�������������������������������������������� 103

8.2 Recognition: Love, and the Phenomenon of Filiation������������������������ 186

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

We cannot discuss education and teaching without reference to a background. In the

1.1.1 The Harnessing of Education for Economic Growth

1.1.2 A Mathematical-Scientific Approach to Education

o­ utcomes. These measurements are promoted as universally valid, irrespective of

1.1.3 What Is Threatened by Universalization of Knowledge

The universalizing of knowledge is based on a division between nature and culture

was buying it.

1.2 A Historical Account

To underscore the western historical heritage of education, we have chosen to start

1.2.1 Two Stories About the Beginning

Education always has a history, it is embedded in a context, a time and a place,

1.2.2 Education; Knowledge and Truth

Let us now conclude this introduction and move on to a description of what we

1.3 Making Education Educational

education has to expand beyond an instrumental and economically driven perspec-

1.3.1 A Didactic of Teaching

“General didactics is the pedagogy of teaching” (von Oettingen, 2017, p. 195).15

Fig. 1.1 The didactic TEACHER STUDENT(S)

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Maynooth University Sharon Todd

Trondheim, Norway Halvor Hoveid

2.2 Teaching for the Test – Or Is It Testing

5 Teaching – Between Attention and Delivery�� 103

8.2 Recognition: Love, and the Phenomenon of Filiation�� 186

1.1.1 The Harnessing of Education for Economic Growth

1.1.2 A Mathematical-Scientific Approach to Education

o utcomes. These measurements are promoted as universally valid, irrespective of

1.1.3 What Is Threatened by Universalization of Knowledge

1.2 A Historical Account

1.2.1 Two Stories About the Beginning

1.2.2 Education; Knowledge and Truth

1.3 Making Education Educational

1.3.1 A Didactic of Teaching