Pedagogies of Taking Care

Book excerpt: This book traces the notion of care and civic values in education that are largely devalued today by neoliberal economic concerns. Through a discussion of educators and philosophers including Arendt, Foucault, Guattari, Patocka, Simondon, Stengers and Whitehead, Atkinson explores the 'gift of otherness' in relation to an ethico-politics of pedagogic practice and learning, including art education. He argues for pedagogical practices that facilitate and support each learner's pathways through what is called a pedagogy of taking care. This involves paying due attention, with empathy, to each learner's pathway of learning and to the difference and divergence of such pathways. It also requires the teacher to take care, to be vigilant towards their own pedagogical frameworks that inform pedagogical work, particularly when a student or child produces work that does not accord with such frameworks. Atkinson not only critiques current educational policy but advocates possible futures of being, not dominated by the neoliberal tools of force and power. Pedagogies of taking care allow us to think differently about education and art education, and revaluate it's meaning within research, classrooms, non-formal contexts of education and cultural institutions.