The Pedagogy of Encounters and Teacher Education

Abstract

The essay is divided into three parts.

The first part analyzes the comprehensive cultural crisis of our time and its political consequences. Since the beginning of the 20th century, everyday thinking has been increasingly dominated by what this essay calls an irrational mentality. Faith in the knowability of the world and the predictability of life is eroding, as is the need for a comprehensive knowledge of the world. This trend lays the foundation for clinging to the familiar, the "normal," for distrusting the unfamiliar, and ultimately, for being attracted to power and authoritarian systems.

The second part examines the role of education in reproducing this crisis and the role education can play in overcoming it. Instead of equipping the masses with knowledge of the world, public education, through its mechanical adherence to curricula, suggests that all this is unlearnable and uninteresting. Teachers and students live in different worlds, and the real task of education should be to create shared worlds through the fruitful encounter of these worlds. In simpler terms: to awaken students' interest in the world. This largely depends on human relationships, which is why the essay uses the term: pedagogy of encounters.

The third part is about how teacher training can serve this pedagogy. In this regard, the essay discusses two issues. Firstly, it argues that teachers need deep subject-specific knowledge. Secondly, it argues that teachers' pedagogical knowledge cannot be reduced to technical skills, because it also includes knowledge of the world, the acquisition of which presupposes freedom of learning.