Two subjects occupy me in the writing of this text. The question of what forms education and becoming a teacher, and a reflection on educative practice from a progressive point of view. By “progressive” I mean a point of view that favors the autonomy of the students. This theme of autonomy incorporates the analysis of various types of knowledge that I find to be fundamental to educational practice. And, if there are other types of knowledge that I have left out or whose importance I have not appreciated, I hope the critical reader will be able to add them to the list.
To those who may read this book, I ought at the outset to make clear that since this theme is a permanent preoccupation of mine as a teacher, various aspects of it, discussed here, will have been discussed in my earlier books. I do not believe, however, that the fact that I touch on these problems from one book to another is wearisome to the reader, especially when they are taken up again in a nonrepetitive way. In my own case, taking up a theme again and again has to do principally with the oral status of my written word. It also has to do with the relevance of the theme of which I speak to the array of objects in which I invest my curiosity. And it has to do with the relationship that certain things have with other things, as they emerge during the course of my reflection. It is in this sense, for example, that I once again touch on the question of the unfinishedness of the human person, the question of our insertion into a permanent process of searching. In this context I explore again the problem of ingenuous and critical curiosity and the epistemological status of curiosity. It is also in this sense that I insist once again that education (or “formation” as I sometimes call it) is much more than a question of training a student to be dexterous or competent. I also may as well mention my almost obstinate fascination with everything that has to do with men and women. I keep returning to this topic, and each time I do so, it is as if I am coming to it enchanted for the first time. Finally, I cannot avoid a permanently critical attitude toward what I consider to be the scourge of neoliberalism, with its cynical fatalism and its inflexible negation of the right to dream differently, to dream of utopia.
My abhorrence of neoliberalism helps to explain my legitimate anger when I speak of the injustices to which the ragpickers among humanity are condemned. It also explains my total lack of interest in any pretension of impartiality. I am not impartial or objective; not a fixed observer of facts and happenings. I never was able to be an adherent of the traits that falsely claim impartiality or objectivity. That did not prevent me, however, from holding always a rigorously ethical position. Whoever really observes, does so from a given point of view. And this does not necessarily mean that the observer’s position is erroneous. It is an error when one becomes dogmatic about one’s point of view and ignores the fact that, even if one is certain about his or her point of view, it does not mean that one’s position is always ethically grounded.
My point of view is that of the “wretched of the earth,” of the excluded. I do not accept, however, under any circumstances, acts of terrorism in support of this point of view. Such acts result in the death of the innocent and the spread of an insecurity that affects everyone. Terrorism is the negation of what I call a universal human ethic. I am on the side of the Arabs in their struggle for their rights, but I cannot accept the acts of terrorism perpetrated in Munich and elsewhere in favor of those rights.
I would like to underline what I consider to be for teachers our ethical responsibility in the exercise of our profession. And this applies also to those who are, at present, in the course of preparing themselves to be teachers. This small book is permeated by and cut across with the total sense of the nature of ethics that is inherent in all forms of educational practice, especially as this practice pertains to the preparation of teachers. Teacher preparation should never be reduced to a form of training. Rather, teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history. But it is important to be clear that I am speaking not about a restricted kind of ethics that shows obedience only to the law of profit. Namely, the ethics of the market. It seems that there is now a global tendency to accept the crucial implications of the New World Order as natural and inevitable. One of the speakers at a recent international meeting of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) reports of hearing an opinion, frequently bandied about in the first world, that third world children suffering from acute diarrhea ought not be saved because we would only prolong lives destined for misery and suffering.1 Obviously, I am not speaking of that kind of ethics. On the contrary, I am speaking of a universal human ethic, an ethic that is not afraid to condemn the kind of ideological discourse I have just cited. Not afraid to condemn the exploitation of labor and the manipulation that makes a rumor into truth and truth into a mere rumor. To condemn the fabrication of illusions, in which the unprepared become hopelessly trapped and the weak and the defenseless are destroyed. To condemn making promises when one has no intention of keeping one’s word, which causes lying to become an almost necessary way of life. To condemn the calumny of character assassination simply for the joy of it and the fragmentation of the utopia of human solidarity. The ethic of which I speak is that which feels itself betrayed and neglected by the hypocritical perversion of an elitist purity, an ethic affronted by racial, sexual, and class discrimination. For the sake of this ethic, which is inseparable from educative practice, we should struggle, whether our work is with children, youth, or adults.
The best way to struggle for this ethic is to live it in our educative practice, in our relations with our students, in the way we deal with the contents of what we teach, and in the way we quote from authors—both those we agree with and those we do not. We cannot criticize an author unless we actually know his or her work. To base a criticism merely on ideas about the author gleaned from the book cover is an insult.
I may not agree with a given pedagogical theory of this or that author, and, of course, I ought to make my students aware of the disagreement. But what I cannot do in my criticism is lie to them. The education of the teacher should be so ethically grounded that any gap between professional and ethical formation is to be deplored. We should devote ourselves humbly but perseveringly to our profession in all its aspects: scientific formation, ethical rectitude, respect for others, coherence, a capacity to live with and learn from what is different, and an ability to relate to others without letting our ill-humor or our antipathy get in the way of our balanced judgment of the facts.
It is not only of interest to students but also extremely important to students to perceive the differences that exist among teachers over the comprehension, interpretation, and appreciation, sometimes widely differing, of problems and questions that arise in the day-today learning situations in the classroom. It is also fundamental that they perceive the respect and loyalty with which a teacher may analyze or criticize the position of a colleague.
From time to time, in the course of this book, I will be returning to this theme because I am absolutely convinced of the ethical nature of educative practice in so far as it is a specifically human activity. Also given the fact that every country on the planet is becoming more and more suffocated by the ethics of the market, it seems to me that whatever we do to promote a universal human ethic is very little compared with what needs to be done. We can only consider ourselves to be the subjects of our decisions, our searching, our capacity to choose—that is, as historical subjects, as people capable of transforming our world—if we are grounded ethically. In this sense, the possibility of transgressing our ethical foundation exists and is a choice. But it is not a virtue, and we cannot accept it.
It is not possible for the ethical subject to live without being permanently exposed to the risk or even the choice of transgression. One of the biggest difficulties about this ethical grounding is that we have to do everything in our power to sustain a universal human ethic without at the same time falling into a hypocritical moralism. Simultaneously, it is part of our struggle for such an ethic to refuse, with dignity, the defense of a human ethic that is quite obviously only a mask for pharisaical moralism. I have never indulged in distortion or negation as far as this ethic is concerned.
When I speak of a universal human ethic, however, I am speaking of something absolutely indispensable for human living and human social intercourse. In making this statement, I am aware of the critical voices of those who, because they do not know where I am coming from, consider me ingenuous and idealistic. In truth, I speak of a universal human ethic in the same way I speak of humanity’s ontological vocation, which calls us out of and beyond ourselves. Or as I speak of our being as something constructed socially and historically and not there simply a priori. A being born in the womb of history but in the process of coming to be bears in itself some fundamental archetypes without which it would be impossible to recognize our human presence in the world as something singular and original. In other words, our being in the world is far more than just “being.” It is a “presence,” a “presence” that is relational to the world and to others. A “presence” that, in recognizing another presence as “not I,” recognizes its own self. A “presence” that can reflect upon itself, that knows itself as presence, that can intervene, can transform, can speak of what it does, but that can also take stock of, compare, evaluate, give value to, decide, break with, and dream. It is in the area of decision, evaluation, freedom, breaking with, option, that the ethical necessity imposes itself. In this sense, ethical grounding is inevitable, although its transgression is also possible. And transgression occurs. It cannot be considered a value even though it is the fruit of choice. It is not, in other words, a virtue.
In truth, it would be incomprehensible if the awareness that I have of my presence in the world were not, simultaneously, a sign of the impossibility of my absence from the construction of that presence. Insofar as I am a conscious presence in the world, I cannot hope to escape my ethical responsibility for my action in the world. If I am a pure product of genetic, cultural, or class determination, I have no responsibility for my action in the world and, therefore, it is not possible for me to speak of ethics. Of course, this assumption of responsibility does not mean that we are not conditioned genetically, culturally, and socially. It means that we know ourselves to be conditioned but not determined. It means recognizing that History is time filled with possibility and not inexorably determined—that the future is problematic and not already decided, fatalistically.
I should stress also that this book is about hope and optimism, but not about false optimism or vain hope. Of course, people will say—including some on the left for whom the future has lost its problematic essence and is now no more than a given—that this optimism and hope of mine are nothing but the daydream of an inveterate dreamer.
I am not angry with people who think pessimistically. But I am sad because for me they have lost their place in history.
There is a lot of fatalism around us. An immobilizing ideology of fatalism, with its flighty postmodern pragmatism, which insists that we can do nothing to change the march of social-historical and cultural reality because that is how the world is anyway. The most dominant contemporary version of such fatalism is neoliberalism. With it, we are led to believe that mass unemployment on a global scale is an end-of-the-century inevitability. From the standpoint of such an ideology, only one road is open as far as educative practice is concerned: adapt the student to what is inevitable, to what cannot be changed. In this view, what is essential is technical training, so that the student can adapt and, therefore, survive. This book, which I now offer to those who are interested in this theme, is a decisive NO to an ideology that humiliates and denies our humanity.
Lastly, let me say what this book asks and hopes of you: That you give yourself to it critically and with ever-expanding curiosity.