Thinking, Childhood, and Time: Contemporary Perspectives on the Politics of Education

by Walter Omar Kohan (Editor), Barbara Weber (Editor), Adrienne Argent (Contribution by), Iris Berger (Contribution by), Michael A. Bonnett (Contribution by)

Overview

Thinking, Childhood, and Time: Contemporary Perspectives on the Politics of Education is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notion of childhood and its place in a philosophical education. Contributors consider children’s experiences of time, space, embodiment, and thinking. By acknowledging Hannah Arendt’s notion that every child brings a new beginning into the world, they address the question of how educators can be more responsive to the Otherness that childhood offers, while assuming that most educational models follow either a chronological model of child development or view children as human beings that are lacking.

The contributors explore childhood as a philosophical concept in children, adults, and even beyond human beings—Childhood as a (forgotten) dimension of the world. Contributors also argue that a pedagogy that does not aim for an “exodus of childhood,” but rather responds to the arrival of a new human being responsibly (dialogically), fosters a deeper appreciation of the newness that children bring in order to sensitize us for our own Childhood as adults as well and allow us to welcome other forms of childhood in the world. As a whole, this book argues that the experience of natality, such as the beginning of life, is not chronologically determined, but rather can occur more than once in a human life and beyond. Scholars of philosophy, education, psychology, and childhood studies will find this book particularly useful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781793604583
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	10/06/2020
Series:	Philosophy of Childhood
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.34(w) x 9.05(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Walter Omar Kohan is professor in the Childhood Studies Department at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Barbara Weber is associate professor and program chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at the University of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Part One: Phenomenological Explorations of Time, Thinking and Embodiment

Chapter 1: Childhood and the Genesis of Time: A Phenomenological Approach

James Mensch

Chapter 2: Child and Time: A Phenomenological Journey into the Human Conditions of Education

Barbara Weber

Chapter 3: Think Like a Girl: Scout’s Time and Experience in To Kill a Mockingbird

Peter Costello

Chapter 4: Listening, Phronein and the First Principle of Happiness

Pablo Muruzábal Lamberti

Chapter 5: Thinking and the Play of Being

Michael A. Bonnett

Chapter 6: Philosophia Ludens for Children: A Proposal to Play and to Think

Annalisa Caputo

Part Two: Decolonial and Postructuralist Perspectives on the Politics of Education

Chapter 7: Becoming Child: Wild Being and the Post-Human

David Kennedy

Chapter 8: Paulo Freire and the Childhood of a Philosophical and Educational Life

Walter Omar Kohan

Chapter 9: Democratic Child’s Play: Natality, Responsible Education, and Decolonial Praxis

Toby Rollo

Chapter 10: Posthuman Child: De(con)structing Western Notions of Child Agency

Karin Murris

Chapter 11: Relational Openings for The Otherwise: Thinking Community as What is Not…

Cristina Delgado Vintimilla

Chapter 12: Life as a Pedagogical Concept

Iris Berger and Adrienne Argent

Chapter 13: Natures, Cultures and Education: Anarcheologies of the Present

Juliana Merçon

About the Contributors

Editorial Reviews

"This impressive book is a significant contribution to the emergent field of philosophy of childhood. It breaks new ground by extending our understanding of childhood beyond the chronological, deficit, and romantic conceptions. Thinking, Childhood, and Time includes thirteen original essays that work together to reanimate our sense of childhood as an existential state. In essays that draw upon literature, phenomenology, postmodern theories, and posthuman approaches, the contributors’ explorations of time, natality, community, creativity, culture, and schooling are equally poetic, perceptive, and provocative. A testament to the philosophical interestingness of childhood, this book will have an immediate and lasting impact in education."

Megan Jane Laverty

Readers who recognize in a child’s experience not merely an imperfect attempt at adulthood—but, rather, a unique and profound expressivity—will cherish the work that Peter Costello has advanced in Philosophical Children in Literary Situations. Costello’s gracious and deeply insightful book engages with classics of children’s literature while providing multiple, lucid points of entry into a richly-layered phenomenological method. He writes not only for philosophers but also for educators, parents, and researchers seeking new ways of understanding the complexities of gender, race, meaning, and community that shape a child’s perceptual world.

Jessica Wiskus

[T]he time spent contemplating, making connections, and seeking application to the brilliant ideas presented in Thinking, childhood, and Time was time well spent. This work will be read and taught for years to come.

Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis