An Education in 'Evil'

This book asserts that engaging with divergent understandings about the nature of evil and how it functions can help those interested in education think through issues in curriculum, pedagogy, and beyond. The author provokes thinking about and through the concept of evil in the spirit of thoughtful education (as opposed to thoughtless schooling) toward how we might live together in less harmful ways. Although thinking about evil can be uncomfortable and troubling, such inquiries help us explore what sort of relations we want to have with others. Analyzing our role in evil as humans, as well as our responsibilities to counter the processes of evil present in our everyday lives, opens up a potential to foster radical thought in and out of the classroom.

Explains how pedagogy of banal evil can subvert villainification (the creation of a single actor as the face of systemic harm). Anti- villainification allows for the teaching and learning of history and contemporary events to exist in the tension between simplistically blaming one person and absolving us all from blame by (also simplistically) blaming the amorphous entity society Drawing from a phenomenographical study and the concept of order-words from Delezue and Guattari, examines the power of the label, evil, in the context of the study of historical and contemporary events Examines "Symbolic Evil" in the context of Canadian and US systems of schooling at the classroom, school, district, and national levels, noting the power of Symbolic Evil to help us redefine educational concerns like student success

Auteur
Cathryn van Kessel is Assistant Professor in the Department of Secondary Education at the University of Alberta, Canada. As a researcher, a former secondary school teacher, and a current educator of pre-service teachers, her work seeks to blend educational theory and practice in provoking ways, particularly in relation to philosophy and social psychology.

Contenu

1. Introduction.- 2. Evil is in the Eye of the Beholder.- 3. Banal Evil and Social Studies Education.- 4. Processes of Evil as a Supplement to Citizenship Education.- 5. The Politics of Evil.- 6. Symbolic Evil and the Schooling System.- 7. Evil, Existential Terror, and Classroom Climate.- 8. Epilogue.-