Preserving the world: Hannah Arendt and the crisis in education

Abstract

In this article, I focus on a question Professor Emeritus Jón Torfi Jónasson has emphasized in his work and contribution to educational debate and research: the question of the purpose of education and schooling in an ever-changing and globalized world. To do this, I rely on a short essay titled The Crisis in Education, written by the political thinker Hannah Arendt in 1954. By choosing this text, I take seriously what Jónasson has recently written, and mentioned before, that while it is important to think things over anew, it is also helpful to review old and good ideas (Jón Torfi Jónasson, 2020). I believe that Arendt would have agreed with Jónasson on this matter, as she emphasized that “every thought is, strictly speaking, an afterthought” (Arendt, 1978, p. 78) or a moment that requires us to pause and put things into perspective, precisely to be able to think differently about things.

Arendt’s work has been influential in analyses of global political and socio-economic events in multiple scholarly fields. Her ideas on violence, power, totalitarianism, and freedom have become urgently relevant within and across different national contexts. Her essay on the perceived crisis in education in the United States brings forth ideas that are both meaningful and important in this regard; not only to better understand the role of education in today’s societies but also as a response to increased cultural diversity and difference, often regarded as the symbol of globalization. The present article does not offer a translation or systemic analysis (i.e., thematic analysis) of Arendt’s text but is rather a somewhat personal account of Arendt’s main ideas concerning the different roles of education and schooling. This includes the notion of visiting as a way to engage with diversity and difference, the meaning and importance of preserving the world, and the complexities of belonging to a society and responding to a crisis. I also discuss Arendt’s ideas in light of more recent and emerging theories and frameworks on global citizenship education (GCE). Global citizenship has gained increased prevalence as an important concept within education policy and practice in the past decade. A significant moment came about in 2012 when the former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, launched the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) announcing that global citizenship was to be considered as equally important to education as ensuring access to education and enabling better quality within education. By doing so, the question of purpose, or what is education really for, became central. The concept of GCE has been supported and emphasized further as a part of UNESCO’s education policy and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to pursue achievement of target 4.7 on education for sustainability and global citizenship.

By drawing on the work of scholars engaging with critical pedagogy and citizenship, as well as reflecting on my own personal and professional experiences, I emphasize the importance of a critical and decentered approach to global citizenship education, looking specifically towards the seminal work of Andreotti (2006) on soft vs. critical global citizenship education. I argue that Andreotti’s work, emphasizing critical literacy not only as a part of students learning but also teachers’ pedagogical approach, can be understood to reflect some of Arendt’s ideas, in particular teachers’ responsibility for representing the world, as it is. But also, through the notion of visiting, in which we respond to diversity and difference by positioning ourselves in the place of others, allowing us the opportunity to think anew about the world we share with each other. Such a critical and decentered pedagogical approach is not only important when engaging with diversity and difference within the space of multicultural schools, but also when considering bigger questions concerning the role and purpose of education in a globalized society. It is especially important if education is to be, as Arendt (2006, p. 193) wrote, “…the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it” and “…whether we love our children enough” to prepare them for “the task of renewing a common world”. This, I believe does not mean that we, as teachers or even parents, should tell young people that they ought to change the world, nor how they should do it, but rather that we should create the necessary space for young people to develop their own unique thoughts and actions regarding what kind of a world they are willing and able to love.