What really matters is ”between”

In this article, the focal point of education is simultaneously defined as: i) the place where the most important educational activity is taking place; and ii) the place where the main interest of educational theory (and educational practice) should be located. The article aims to discuss the idea that the focal point is located somewhere between the teacher and the student. This idea is introduced by references to Gert Biesta’s inter-subjective theory and to some more or less classical conceptions which distinguish between two main aspects of sociality. Further, and as a more specific aim, the article discusses Martin Buber’s contribution to understanding the focal point of education. Buber contributes by emphasising “the interhuman” as a primary dimension in relation to “the social”. From Buber’s perspective, what really matters in education exists in an ontological and relational event. In the last section of the article it is suggested that exploration of the focal point should not stick to just one form of relationship. The interhuman event is, taken by itself, supposed to be primary, but the focal point cannot be fully understood without a penetrative picture of its social context.

Författare: Jonas Aspelin

What really matters is ‘between’. Understanding the focal point of education from an inter-human perspective

Education Inquiry 2/2010