Newness and human disclosure in Dewey and Arendt: Challenging neoliberal educational agenda

Abstract

Over the past decades, a neoliberal shift in educational policies has affected educational purposes and schooling practices worldwide and has reframed all of the features of education. From curriculum to teaching methods, from families and students’ perceptions regarding what is worthwhile and what is not to teachers’ professionalism, all aspects of education have been, de facto, deeply transformed by the neoliberal agenda for education. This paper draws on Dewey and Arendt to explore the interplay between the Deweyan call for “a new birth in the world” and the Arendtian questions of “new beginning” and “natality.” It is my contention that such an interplay may furnish a cue for a different conception of education and schooling. In this conception, under the regulation of teachers, the space of not-yet—that is, the space of pure potentiality for growth—may emerge in classroom activities, and new forms of meanings may arise.

Introduction

In recent decades, the neoliberal shift has widely affected educational discourse, policies and practices worldwide (Olssen and Peters, 2005; Peters, 2003; Rutkowski, 2015; Sellar and Lingard, 2014; Shahjahan, 2011). This “neoliberal cascade” (Connell, 2013) has pushed educational institutions and processes, as well as what we may call “educational subjectivities” (of both teachers and students), toward a significant transformation (Ball, 2003). I argue that such a transformation is anything but benign. It implies a lack, if not an eclipse, of invaluable educational features such as democratic sharing among all the actors of educational processes and practices, meaning creation and the possibility for newness to emerge. The failure to recognize such features and phenomena results in an impoverished conception of education at the individual and collective levels (Ball and Olmedo, 2013; Biesta, 2004, 2006, 2010; d'Agnese, 2015; Hill, 2004).

Given these premises, I wish to argue that only through a different conception of education, one in which education is not preconceived and, in a sense, delivered from above, do we find the clear sense of newness (Arendt, [1961] 1977) and “unattained possibilities” (Dewey, [1925] 1929: 267) that, in turn, make education—and living—worthwhile. Drawing from Dewey and Arendt, in what follows I explore the interplay between the Deweyan call for “a new birth in the world” (Dewey, [1934] 1980: 267) and the Arendtian questions of “new beginning” and “natality” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 9). It is my contention that such an interplay may furnish the cue for a different conception of education and schooling; one in which, under the regulation of teachers, the space of not-yet, or the space of pure potentiality for growth, may emerge, and new forms of subjectivities and meanings may arise. In this sense, the curriculum is not just a means to develop the skills required by market labor, as the neoliberal agenda de facto promotes. It is also a matter of hesitation and waiting, one in which teachers and students attempt to dwell in pure potentiality for growth. Exactly such a dwelling allows for the possibility of newness. If we conceive of education as the means by which human life gains its always-open meaning and society has the possibility to radically experiment and change, then a different way of conceiving schooling deserves our attention. Such an understanding is consistent with the task of intelligence, action and thinking as conceived by Dewey in The Need for the Recovery of Philosophy. In this essay, Dewey calls for a conception of intelligence as something which surpasses “given and fixed ends” and “technical efficiency,” thus “liberat[ing] and liberaliz[ing] action,” developing “within the sphere of action for the sake of possibilities not yet given” (Dewey, 1917: 63). It seems to me that when losing sight of such a “sphere” of “not yet given,” schooling dismisses a significant part of its task and runs the risk of becoming a mere matter of reproduction.

The paper is organized into three sections that analyze the features and consequences of the neoliberal educational agenda (first section), human disclosure and togetherness in Dewey and Arendt (second section) and the interplay between the Arendtian concept of “unexpectedness” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 177–178) and the Deweyan call for newness.

The neoliberal agenda for education

Over the past decades, the neoliberal shift in educational policies has, in fact, reframed educational purposes and schooling practices worldwide, affecting education in all of its features. Ranging from curriculum to teaching methods (Alexander, 2011; Au, 2011; Ball, 2003; Biesta, 2004), from families and students’ perceptions regarding what is worthwhile and what is not to teachers’ professionalism (Biesta, 2010, 2015; Clarke, 2012), all aspects of education have been deeply transformed by such a “neoliberal cascade” (Connell, 2013). The growing emphasis on what we may call the primary means of the neoliberal educational apparatus, namely, evidence-based discourse and human capital theory (Biesta, 2007; Clarke, 2012; Peters, 2003; Rutkowski, 2015), has produced a severe standardization of teaching. This standardization, enacted through the performance-based accountability measures underlying the neoliberal shift, “both disempowers and deskills teachers” (Au, 2011: 30) while at the same time narrowing the curriculum (Apple, 1995). Teaching and learning, according to Mahiri, “become Taylorized” (2005: 82), forced to serve demands and needs located outside the spheres of both education and democratic debate. Importantly, critiques and concerns have also been raised about the scientific soundness and ethico-political implications of such a shift (Biesta, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2014; Simons, 2006; Smeyers and Depaepe, 2006).

A significant problem with the neoliberal educational agenda is that only one vision of society and education is allowed to enter the educational arena. In other words, there is no competition between or acknowledgment of different ideas about society and education. The competition occurs within the system, namely, between countries, schools, teachers and students, on the basis of what has effectively been called “a global space of equivalence” (Shahjahan, 2013: 677). Through such a space, countries, schools and the subjects being educated are ranked and organized and are pushed to an ongoing competition aimed at achieving the best learning outcomes (Alexander, 2011; Au, 2011; Biesta, 2015; Grek, 2009). Neoliberal discourse, although enacted in different countries and situations, speaks with one voice, as it were.

It is worth noting that when reading the documents, recommendations, publications and webpages of certain major educational agencies and institutions worldwide (e.g., the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Directorate for Education and Skills and the US Department of Education) we see that the same educational picture is enacted and by means of the same rhetorical strategy. Indeed, these powerful institutions frame their performative discourses on education in terms of “training [and] basic skills” (EU, 2015), “student achievement and competitiveness” (US Department of Education, 2016) and “knowledge management […and] students’ performance” (OECD, 2016), thus reframing education in terms of human capital theory and curriculum in terms of efficiency protocols (Au, 2011; Biesta, 2004). Even by glancing at the webpages and names of these institutions we can gain an idea of how education is being enacted. The OECD’s Directorate for Education is called the “OECD’s Directorate for Education and skills,” and the webpage of the European Commission devoted to education is entitled “Education and Training” (EU, 2015). In addition, in what we may call the European Union’s (EU) leading document, Rethinking Education (EU, 2012), education is established in terms of skills of all kinds. The US is no exception; at the center of the US Department of Education’s homepage, the following claim is found: “Our mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness” (US Department of Education, 2016). Given the aims of this paper, I cannot adequately delve into this discourse or analyze in detail how and by what means it works and which values and idea of society it promotes. However, some examples may be useful to both substantiate and better situate the analysis I wish to develop. In what follows, I will focus on three examples of this discourse: (a) the OECD’s PISA trifold brochure (OECD, 2016), which presents the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment; (b) the What Works Clearinghouse’s statement regarding its own mission; and (c) the EU Lisbon Memorandum on Lifelong Learning.

Let us analyze the OECD’s PISA trifold brochure (OECD, 2016), where we find the following:

“What is important for citizens to know and be able to do?” That is the question that underlies the triennial survey of 15-year-old students around the world known as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA assesses the extent to which students near the end of compulsory education have acquired key knowledge and skills that are essential for full participation in modern societies. (OECD, 2016: 1)

Although the passage, at first sight, may seem to be only an explanation of what an assessment program is supposed to produce, it is my contention that through passages such as the one quoted above, a severe reduction of education, living and society is enacted. That is, the assumptions being made are anything but innocent. Drawing out the underlying assumptions of the passage above, the first thing worth noting is that citizens need to acquire the same knowledge and skills regardless of where they live. PISA, in fact, is able to assess “[w]hat is important for citizens to know and be able to do.” This statement signifies that modern societies may be reduced to just one society in that each modern society would require the same skills, knowledge and education to flourish; in turn, citizens, regardless of their desires, aspirations, ideas, personal values and projects, would need to acquire the same skills to succeed. We can see that the OECD does not conceal its ambition to establish a valid worldwide framework for all degrees of education. Moreover, PISA’s mortgage on education, given its performative role (Gorur, 2011), is not limited to what students should learn in the here and now. The OECD, according to its own words, aims to shape “what is possible in education.” PISA’s results, in fact, “reveal what is possible in education by showing what students in the highest-performing and most rapidly improving education systems can do” (OECD, 2016: 2).

The second cue I focus on is related to the What Works Clearinghouse. The What Works Clearinghouse, according to its own words, “is an investment of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) within the U.S. Department of Education.” Its aims consist of “review[ing] the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education […thus] provid[ing] educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. We focus on the results from high-quality research to answer the question ‘What works in education?’” (WWC, 2016). I wish to be clear from the outset that my concerns are not so much with the evidence-based approach as relating to education. Although analyses have been provided about its weaknesses and educational inconsistency (Biesta, 2007, 2010), one may reasonably argue that any educational approach has internal weaknesses and inconsistencies—my own included, of course. The problem is that there is something uncomfortable about the fact that an institution that aims to evaluate and, in a sense, govern education in such a wide country adopts only one approach. One would expect a wide, multidimensional and inclusive approach from such an institution, one staging comparisons of an evidence-based approach and a not evidence-based approach. Instead, in the US Department of Education’s documents on education, we find little trace of alternative perspectives or, importantly, initiatives aimed at discussing and broadening such an approach.

The situation in Europe is similar. When reading the EU’s documents on education, we find the same approach. As an example, let us consider a passage from the Lisbon Memorandum on Lifelong Learning, which reads as follows:

The European Council held in Lisbon in March 2000 marks a decisive moment for the direction of policy and action in the European Union. Its conclusions affirm that Europe has indisputably moved into the Knowledge Age […]. This means not simply that individuals must adapt to change, but equally that established ways of doing things must change too. […] Therefore, Europe’s education and training systems are at the heart of the coming changes. They too, must adapt (EU, 2000: 3, emphasis added)

This passage itself is sufficiently clear. Although it states that “Europe’s education and training systems are at the heart of the coming changes,” this centrality is not conceived in proactive terms by thinking of education in and of itself, in its own right. Education is not framed as something capable of autonomously establishing its aims and purposes—or, in Dewey’s words, as something having “no end beyond itself” or something that is “its own end” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 59). Instead, the passage notes that both education and individuals “must adapt.” It is clear that what is accomplished in such a passage is the narrowing of education to a means of the neoliberal apparatus; an apparatus that, in a sense, disposes of individuals and communities, thereby establishing individual and collective aims. In fact, change, which is certainly a pivotal educational category, is not conceived of as a field of possibilities, a tension passing through individuals and communities or a moving force with its roots in one’s will, desires and aspirations. Quite the opposite: change is a force that comes from above in that “individuals must adapt to change” and “Europe’s education and training systems […] too, must adapt.” The direction of change is pre-established; as in the OECD’s document, a kind of mortgage is put on the future of education. A silent but powerful educational dominion is at work. This dominion is anything but benign; it involves the weakening, if not the eclipse, of priceless educational features. In what follows, I will focus on what I see as a major problem with the neoliberal agenda: the eclipse of newness in education. I will do so by offering a comparison between Dewey and Arendt. It is my contention that although these two thinkers are located in different traditions, their understanding of “human nature” (Dewey, 1922) and the “human condition” (Arendt, [1958] 1998) shows several points of intersection. That is, the interplay between the Deweyan understanding of “unrealized possibilities” ([1934] 1980: 346) and the Arendtian concepts of “disclosure” ([1958] 1998: 180) and “natality” ([1958] 1998: 9) is educationally promising and may provide a foothold for challenging the underlying assumptions of the neoliberal agenda.

Human disclosure and togetherness in Dewey and Arendt

One of the recurring themes of Arendtian work is her critique of any already-established account of humanity. In The Human Condition she boldly challenges any definition of human nature. For Arendt, whatever we may think of it, the human condition is always-already beyond the thought that attempts to capture it. This is so because human beings come to establish who they are in ever-ending and ever-changing processes whose structure and aims are defined in concrete living situations. In this sense, classrooms and educational spaces are conceived as spaces in which human living takes form in all of its features, not only as places where competences are acquired at will to face a preconceived notion of what is worthy and what is not. What is to be achieved and what students must strive for should be a matter of ongoing discussions and transformations. Otherwise, we run the risk of enhancing a reification of humanity, for

nothing entitles us to assume that man has a nature or essence in the same sense as other things. In other words, if we have a nature or essence, then surely only a god could know and define it, and the first prerequisite would be that he be able to speak about a “who” as though it were a “what.” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 10)

Any attempt to give human beings preconceived aims, then, runs into such a reification of what is human and in the erasure of “[t]he disclosure of the ‘who’” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 184), namely, the manifestation—and the fulfillment—of the subject as one who can act and speak and who strives for meaningful life.

What is highly significant from an educational perspective is that in Arendt’s view, this “meaningfulness” comes into play only in the dimension of “togetherness.” That is, there is no room for something like “a private meaning” in the Arendtian account. According to Arendt, meaningfulness may rise only when human beings are considered “in the plural.” Only by talking, moving and acting in a shared space may we experience meaningfulness. Failure to recognize such a public dimension brings “modern world alienation,” or the “flight […] from the world into the self” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 6). This is true because in the Arendtian account, the very reality of the world and things comes from the presence of others: “The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 50).

To be clear, the central point in Arendt’s understanding is that human beings come into the world in their uniqueness by revealing to others who they are through their actions and speech, while at the same time revealing to themselves who they are through their actions and speech. Thus, we do not know who we are before such a revealing comes into play. This condition (dare I say, the very essence of the human condition in Arendt’s view?) renders human beings exposed and vulnerable from the very beginning. This vulnerability, it seems to me, does not primarily derive from the fact that we do not control the outcomes of our actions and speech, nor do we control how these actions and speech will be interpreted by others. Rather, even more radically, it derives from the fact that one comes to know who one is at the same time that others come to know who one is. I reveal myself to myself and come to know myself only when I reveal myself to others. “Although nobody knows whom he reveals when he discloses himself in deed or word, he must be willing to risk the disclosure” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 180). Disclosure does not occur only when the world or others manifest themselves to me. The primordial form of disclosure is the disclosure of the subject to her/himself, and it is highly significant that such a disclosure can only occur in our being-together. We may even say that in Arendt’s account we have the primacy of the public dimension, in the sense that the private dimension stems from such a public space, for

To live an entirely private life means above all to be deprived of things essential to a truly human life […]. The privation of privacy lies in the absence of others; as far as they are concerned, private man does not appear, and therefore it is as though he did not exist. (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 58)

Then, we come to see that neoliberalism, in its continuous attempt “to limit public discourse” (Hursh and Henderson, 2011: 176), ends in dispossessing human beings of their capacity to meaningfully act and speak. If we were deprived of such a public space and discourse, in fact, we would be deprived, at the same time, of the private space, the one in which we may reflect upon ourselves and our thoughts, desires and emotions. In a sense, in Arendt’s view, even identity and self-consciousness stem from public space, for “in acting and speaking, men show who they are, reveal actively their unique personal identities and thus make their appearance in the human world” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 179–180).

Educationally, this is to say that we do not have classrooms formed by diverse individuals, all of whom knowing her/himself and acting while having in mind what she/he wants or does not want to achieve or accomplish. Rather, the knowledge one has about one’s own identity, desires, projects and emotions is formed in the classroom, in that ever-evolving and complex space for exposure that the living classroom is. In contrast, by giving pre-defined ends to educational encounters and dynamics, we establish in advance the space where such effects, projects and ideas are formed, thereby erasing such “unique personal identities.”

I wish to make clear that this is not to deny the role qualification, contents and skills can and should play in school. Quite the opposite: this is to claim for a slightly different kind of qualification, one in which students do not just learn right skills and competencies for what actual society is supposed to be. Rather, through ongoing interaction with curriculum, contents can be transformed, disassembled and reassembled, thus generating new kinds of skills and knowledge, and new desires, projects and relationships as well. Contrary to neoliberal framework, we need to conceive of education and schooling as spaces and times open to newness. Only through such a commitment to unpredictability and the open space of possibility, may the open space of not-yet come to light as a space in its own right, for it is through such a space that new means may be forged and new aims may be conceived of; it is through the indeterminateness opened up by such a conception that new forms of subjectivity and togetherness may also emerge.

This implies that students’ attention and imaginative vision should be directed toward the point in which a subject matter emerges as such, thus focusing on the activity of producing contents, namely, on philosophizing, on mathematising—and here the neoliberal predefined framework is the least helpful. Here, I am appealing for a kind of existential and pragmatic engagement with learning contents, one that is able to put new points of interactions between disciplines and living situations. If the potential of newness have to be preserved and nurtured, we have to preserve and nurture students’ imaginative vision and capacity to disrupt, suspend and play with curricular contents.

Returning to the Arendt–Dewey comparison, it should be noted that the Arendtian account of this “sheer human togetherness” shows striking similarities to the famous Deweyan definition of democracy in Democracy and Education. In his masterpiece, Dewey states that democracy is “[t]he widening of the area of shared concerns, and the liberation of a greater diversity of personal capacities” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 101), stating that

A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others and to consider the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full import of their activity. These more numerous and more varied points of contact denote a greater diversity of stimuli to which an individual has to respond; they consequently put a premium on variation in his action. They secure a liberation of powers which remain suppressed as long as the incitations to action are partial, as they must be in a group which in its exclusiveness shuts out many interests. (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 101)

Through this passage, Dewey accomplishes what may well be called a revolution in our understanding of democracy: from a form of government to a form of living and knowing—an understanding at poles with the neoliberal “assaults” to “the principles, practices, cultures, subjects, and institutions of democracy” (Brown, 2015: 9). This form of living and knowing, in turn, shapes individuals and provides them with the conditions to flourish and develop according to their own desires and projects. This is so because the Deweyan understanding of one’s actions, thoughts and desires is always-already embedded in the living conditions from which such actions, thoughts and desires emerge. Moreover, the Deweyan call is also a call to openness and possibility such that, in the end, one cannot know and forecast where the “variation” of one’s actions and “more numerous and more varied points of contact” should be used to conduct one’s life. This is also why, ultimately, the form of living and educating that democracy is, in a sense, produces uncertainty. If we were to remove this uncertainty from educational and democratic processes, we would also remove the very root of democracy and education.

This is not an isolated passage in this Deweyan masterpiece. Time and again, the Deweyan call to openness and unpredictability runs through his work. When speaking of imagination and its pivotal role, Dewey expends his crucial words on meaning creation, going so far as to state that “There is no limit to the meaning which an action may come to possess. It all depends upon the context of perceived connections in which it is placed; the reach of imagination in realizing connections is inexhaustible” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 243).

In this passage, we see that action does not have meaning in itself. Action, in the Deweyan understanding, does not carry any pre-established meaning because “it all depends upon the context of perceived connections in which it is placed.” In other words, the human capacity to create meaning—in Dewey’s words, “the capacity for constantly expanding the range and accuracy of one’s perception of meanings” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 145)—is potentially inexhaustible. A limitation in connections flows inevitably to narrow the creation and perception of meaning by narrowing the broadening of “the meaning-horizon” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 191) for which Dewey so powerfully calls.

This narrowing has strong effects on the subject as well. If, according to Dewey, “the self is not something readymade, but something in continuous formation through choice of action […and] [t]he generous self consciously identifies itself with the full range of relationships implied in its activity” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 408–409), then by limiting the choices the self can effect and its range of relationships, the neoliberal agenda for education also limits the contribution that the self can make to the formation and development of society.

Despite being located in a well-defined historical and philosophical context, I believe that the Deweyan understanding of meaning creation and perception can be a powerful standpoint from which challenging any preconceived ideological educational framework. Of course, this does not imply that the Deweyan perspective itself, like any perspective we wish to adopt, is immune to ideological presuppositions and bias.

Here we come to a slippery point. The role of the teacher, when reading classrooms in such a way, is both difficult and pivotal, and it can hardly be measured or assessed through a performance-based accountability system. In applying the Deweyan account of democracy to classrooms, in fact, a number of questions arise. How is it possible to determine the location of the “varied points of contact” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 101) toward which Dewey calls our attention? How may we evaluate the teaching capacity for these points, and how do we evaluate what is brought to the fore through these contacts? Considering that “the reach of imagination […] is inexhaustible” (Dewey, [1916] 1930: 243), what kind of methods should be used to govern such an inexhaustible capacity? Returning to the Arendtian account, is it possible to furnish a consistent definition or conceptualization of “[human] disclosure” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 180)? Moreover, is the “risk” connected to such a disclosure worth pursuing? Is it a responsible educational gesture to create the conditions by which students come to run this risk? Who gives teachers the license to travel on paths they are unable to master in all of their features?

It is clear that the dimension of accountability is difficult to address when teachers must leave room for what is, by definition, unpredictable, and ethical dilemmas arise. To be very clear on this point, to the extent to which one comes to know who one is while being-together with others and acting and speaking with others, one does not know who she or he is before such togetherness arises. In addition, to the extent to which the subject is unable to predict the outcomes of her/his actions and speech before these actions and speech come into play in the dimension of togetherness, the teacher is not in control of what goes on in her/his classroom, and not just in the sense that something unpredictable may occur. More radically, unpredictability becomes the founding dimension of classroom life because students are, in a sense, unpredictable to themselves. I am not endorsing a kind of “everything goes” model for teaching; such a model would be, in the best case, senseless, if not irresponsible. What I wish to make visible by such an understanding is a kind of awareness that makes teachers attentive to both the unpredictable qualities of their embeddedness in living educational situations and the unpredictability they actively produce in being engaged in education. This twofold uncertainty, rather than flowing into some nihilistic defeat of educational purposes, puts radical responsibility on both the side of the teacher and the side of the students, who intentionally produce new interactions in the ongoing educational conversation despite not knowing exactly what may come from such interactions. I develop this argument in what follows.

Newness and unexpectedness as essential to education

At this point, it is important to recognize that in Arendt’s view, the very possibility of acting and speaking, the very possibility of showing who human beings are, and, thus, the very possibility for education to happen, lies in the conditions that guarantee such a public, eminently political space—that is, diversity and plurality. As Biesta puts it, “Arendt consistently tries to understand human interaction in general, and political life in particular, from the point of view of plurality, diversity, and difference” (2001: 394). Without plurality, in fact, we would have neither speech nor action, the things by which the “unique distinctness” of human beings is revealed (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 176). As Arendt states, “Plurality is the law of the earth” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 19) and only through speech and action human beings are able “to appear to each other, not indeed as physical objects, but qua men.” This is why “a life without speech and without action, […] is literally dead to the world” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 176–177).

With the term “action,” Arendt means something unique, something that has to do with the capacity of human beings “to take an initiative, to begin […], to set something into motion” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 177). By means of action, newness and human beings come into the world as such. I wish to highlight that the accomplishment of newness, “the nature of beginning that something new is started which cannot be expected from whatever may have occurred before,” its “character of startling unexpectedness” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 177–178), is not something added to human beings, something we as humans may or may not accomplish. As humans, we come into the world as “initium, newcomers and beginners”; we are beginners accomplishing newness. This state of being-beginners is essential to the human condition, and by means of it we “take initiative, are prompted into action” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 177).

And such being an initium is the focus of The Crisis in Education. Here, in speaking of the hope for the new generations, Arendt furnishes in advance a strong critique of neoliberal framework for education, for such a hope “hangs on the new which every generation brings; but precisely because we can base our hope only on this, we destroy everything if we so try to control the new that we, the old, can dictate how it will look’’ (Arendt, [1961] 1977: 189). Acting “for the sake of what is new and revolutionary” (Arendt, [1961] 1977: 189) is, in Arendt’s conception, the first aim of education.

Then, it is clear that the neoliberal educational agenda, in giving students a preconceived framework in which aims and means are established in advance, an idea in which world and things are—just—mastered, erases such a condition of being an initium, for thinking, in Arendt’s work, is far from any idea of “master[ing] the world” (Stonebridge, 2017: 20).

Neoliberal framework, on the contrary, erases, by the same token, plurality and differences. In a sense, neoliberal discourse accomplishes the loss of action and the dominion of achievement—or, paraphrasing Arendt, the “attempt to replace acting with making” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 220). This is so also because “[w]ithout the disclosure of the agent in the act, action loses its specific character and becomes one form of achievement among others” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 180). What Arendt calls “the disclosure of the agent in the act” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 180) is neither necessary nor possible in the neoliberal educational agenda because human beings are always-already disclosed as students who all strive for the same things, in the same world, by means of the same skills and knowledge. The problem is that without such a disclosure, the weaving of togetherness, the very dimension of being-together, is erased. Human beings, on the contrary, must risk the disclosure and must risk themselves in action and speech; only by means of such togetherness does one come into the world. This is why unpredictability, uncertainty and vulnerability have become the founding features of being human and the founding features of education. To be clear, educationally speaking, it is not that students—and teachers, for that matter—are well assured about the terrain in which they dwell and, occasionally, are challenged by something unexpected. Rather, the unexpected and even the “infinitely improbable which actually constitutes the very texture of everything we call real” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 169) is the proper terrain for education to happen.

In Arendt, “the capacity of beginning something anew” (Arendt, [1958] 1998: 9), the capacity to begin something unexpected and even “infinitely improbable,” is the peculiar trait of human living. If we were deprived of such a capacity, we would be reduced to something less than human, something close to a mechanical state—that is, a state in which all is already preconceived. The Arendtian understanding again shows striking similarities to the Deweyan conception of possibility as it is developed in Art as Experience. Dewey does not limit himself to the understanding of art and aesthetics. Rather, his insights work to reframe the conception of foundational educational and philosophical issues, such as inquiry, meaning creation and thinking at large. In a passage devoted to analyzing the relationship between criticism and imagination, we find the following:

A sense of possibilities that are unrealized and that might be realized are, when they are put in contrast with actual conditions, the most penetrating “criticism” of the latter that can be made. It is by a sense of possibilities opening before us that we become aware of constrictions that hem us in and of burdens that oppress. (Dewey, [1934] 1980: 346)

The statement, as often occurs when analyzing Deweyan claims, works deeply at different levels, opening (a) a theoretical level, (b) an ethico-political and educational level and (c) an existential level.

At the theoretical level, it is worth noting that Dewey defines the sense of unrealized possibilities as “the most penetrating ‘criticism’ […] that can be made.” Remembering that unrealized possibilities may be thought of only by employing imagination (Dewey, 1913: 94), we observe that “the most penetrating ‘criticism’” is affected through imagination. This is not to say that imagination allows the complete enacting of criticism; instead, imagination plays a crucial role in the appreciation and evaluation of things.

In this regard, it is crucial to understand that the contrast between “actual conditions” and a “sense of [unrealized] possibilities” is not only necessary to open different possibilities and paths to pursue in the future, it is also the basis by which to penetrate “actual conditions.” In other words, imagination enables us to understand the present and is the basis for inquiry. This leads us to the ethico-political, educational and existential levels. Here, the Deweyan call is clear and vibrant; it is a call toward our duty to imagine, to conceive of unrealized possibilities as things to effect. Namely, the Deweyan call is a call against every possible totalitarian thought, and his point is at once an educational, existential and ethico-political one. Possibilities, in Deweyan understanding, are indeed means of action, collective and personal. In addition, remembering that “[t]here is no limit to the meaning which an action may come to possess […for] the reach of imagination in realizing connections is inexhaustible” (Dewey [1916] 1930: 243), we may understand the educational endeavor as characterized by uncertainty at its very core. Paraphrasing Dewey, the more numerous and varied such conditions are, the richer and vaster is meaning-creation and, thus, living. Educationally speaking, this means that in the concrete practice of schooling, in the time of the daily classroom, space must be made for unstructured activities. These activities must be held in common and must exist without given ends and tracks. This is not to underestimate the role of the learning of given content, ways of knowing and behaving in education and society alike. Without such activities, even the basic level of socialization is at risk. However, by fulfilling only the types of activities entailed and delivered by the neoliberal educational agenda, socialization is at risk as well because true socialization stands on both acquisition and newness.

Thus, we come to see how the complex of meanings revealed by the Arendt–Dewey connection helps us to frame a conception of education at the poles of the neoliberal model. This different conception may help students to engage with the world in purposeful and open ways. Such engagement is created in ongoing interactions with the curriculum and disciplines, which are not a means to learn and acquire always-already preconceived skills and competencies, as occurs in the neoliberal discourse on education. Unpredictability, in the neoliberal educational picture, is only ostensible in that the entire set of competencies and learning outcomes that students are expected to perform comes as a package to both nation-states and schools. If interrelatedness among schooling, the world and living must be enhanced, schooling should not become—only—a matter of testing the right skills and knowledge. Rather, what we may call the space of not-yet must become the primary focus of schooling because it is this not-yet that, in turn, comes to define education. Thus, it is in the interplay between the curriculum and students’ push to explore it that, under the regulation of teachers, the space of not-yet may emerge and new forms and meanings may arise. In this sense, the curriculum is not only a means by which to develop the right skills; it is also a matter of hesitation and waiting, one in which we attempt to dwell in pure potentiality for growth. It is exactly this dwelling that allows for a different type of education to occur. Teachers, navigating on the verge of the actual and the not-yet, are, in a sense, the shepherds of this newness and of the uncertain, fragile equilibrium created in classrooms that are willing to pursue such an eminent experimental gesture.

In conclusion, I wish to highlight that in an era in which education seems to be in the grip of economic demands and anti-democratic impulses, an alternative to both the rise of right-wing populism and the neoliberal apparatus is required. The places from which such an alternative may be envisioned and the tools we may wish to use to address it in the concrete practice of schooling are different and diverse. I hope that the intersection I have attempted to propose between the Arendtian call for “unexpectedness” and “natality” and the Deweyan call for newness and the expansion of meanings may help teachers, educators and those who have a stake in education to resist this pressure and to envision creative ways of engaging with students and new generations in the concrete and crucial practice of “coming into the world” (Arendt, [1961] 1977: 17).