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abstract

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Ordinary editors’ choice

Against learning

Reclaiming a language for education in an age of learning

GERT BIESTA

The language of education

Why does language matter to education? If we would onlythink of language as a description of reality, there wouldn’t betoo much to say in answer to this question. In that case educa-tion simply ‘is’ and language simply describes what ‘is’. Yet weall know that description is only one of the functions of lan-guage – and itself a highly problematic one. Language is notsimply a mirror of reality. At least since Dewey and Wittgen-stein we know that language is a practice, that it is somethingwe do. And at least since Foucault we know that linguistic ordiscursive practices delineate – and perhaps we can even say:constitute – what can be seen, what can be said, what can beknown, what can be thought and, ultimately, what can bedone. Just as language makes some ways of saying and doingpossible, it makes other ways of saying and doing difficult oreven impossible. This is one important reason why languagematters to education, because the language or languages wehave available to speak about education determine to a largeextent what can be said and done, and thus what cannot be saidand done.

In this article I wish to focus on the way in which the lan-guage available to educators has changed over the past two dec-ades. I will argue that the language of education has largelybeen replaced by a language of learning. Although this «new

Biesta, Gert, 2005: Against learn-ing. Reclaiming a language for

education in an age of learning.Nordisk Pedagogik, Vol. 25, pp.

54–66. Oslo. ISSN 0901-8050.

This article provides a criticalexamination of the ‘new lan-guage of learning’ which has

become dominant in educationaldiscourse over the past decades.

It is argued that the new lan-guage of learning allows for an

understanding of education as aneconomic exchange between a

provider and consumer. Such anunderstanding, exemplified in

the idea of ‘meeting the needs ofthe learner’, not only makes it

difficult to represent the contri-butions educators and teachers

make to the educational process;it also makes it very difficult tohave an informed, democratic

discussion about the content andpurpose of education. It is

argued, therefore, that we needto reclaim a language of and for

education, a language which isable to understand what actually

constitutes educationalrelationships.

This article provides an outlineof a possible language of and foreducation; one which focuses ontrust, violence and responsibility

as important constituents ofrelationships that are truly

educational.

Gert Biesta, School of Educationand Lifelong Learning, University

of Exeter, Heavitree Road,Exeter, EX1 2LU, England, UK.

E-mail: [email protected]

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language of learning» has made it possible toexpress ideas and insights that were ratherdifficult to articulate through the language ofeducation, other aspects of our understand-ing of what education is or should be abouthave become increasingly more difficult toarticulate. Something has been lost in theshift from the language of education to thelanguage of learning. It for this reason that Iwish to argue in this article that there is aneed to reclaim a language of education foreducation. To do so, however, cannot simplymean a return to the language or languagesthat we have used in the past. In a sense thetask before us is to re-invent a language foreducation, a language that is responsive tothe theoretical and practical challenges weare faced with today (Biesta, 2002).

Many educators, past and present, havetaken inspiration from an emancipatory lan-guage of education. There is a long traditionwhich focuses on education as a process ofindividual emancipation conceived as a tra-jectory from childhood to adulthood, fromdependence to independence. Critical peda-gogy has helped us to see that there is noindividual emancipation without societalemancipation. Notwithstanding the differ-ence in emphasis, both traditions are inti-mately connected with the Enlightenmentidea of emancipation through rationalunderstanding. This is expressed in the ideathat the ultimate aim of education is rationalautonomy. We now live in an era in whichwe are beginning to see that there is not onerationality but that there are many, an erawhich we could call post-modern or post-colonial.

We now also live in an era in which we arebeginning to see that cognition, knowledge,is only one way to relate to the natural andsocial world, and not necessarily the mostfruitful, important or liberating one. Thepolitical and ecological crises that we arewitnessing today are an indication that the

worldview which underlies the emancipa-tory language of education may havereached its exhaustion. The most importantquestion for us today is no longer how wecan rationally master the natural and socialworld. The most important question is howwe can respond responsibly to, and how wecan live peacefully with what and withwhom is other (e.g., Biesta, 2000; Säfström& Biesta, 2001).

In what follows I wish to make a modestcontribution to the development of an edu-cational language that is responsive to thesechallenges. I will suggest building blocks fora language which puts an emphasis on rela-tionships, on trust and on responsibility,while acknowledging the difficult (seebelow) character of educational relation-ships. My purpose is to create an awarenessof the importance of the language we use aseducators, not only in a reflective and reac-tive way, but in a pro-active and constructiveway as well.

The new language of learning

One of the most remarkable changes that hastaken place over the past two decades in theway in which we speak about and in educa-tion, is the rise of the concept of ‘learning’and the subsequent decline of the concept of‘education.’ Teaching has, for example,become redefined as supporting or facilitat-ing learning, just as education is now oftendescribed as the provision of learning oppor-tunities or learning experiences. Adult edu-cation has become adult learning. And gov-ernments of many countries nowadays stressthe need for lifelong learning and the devel-opment of a learning society, instead of talk-ing about the need for permanent or recur-rent education (e.g., Ranson, 1994; Edwards,1997). Learning has also become a favouriteconcept in policy documents. The Britishgovernment has, for example, recently pro-


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duced documents with such ambitious titlesas The Learning Age: A Renaissance for a NewBritain (DfEE, 1998) and Learning to Succeed(DfEE, 1999). The UK now even has aninternet based provision for everyone whowants to learn, called Learn Direct – or to bemore precise, since this is a registered trade-mark: learndirect®. The start page of its web-site says it as follows:

Welcome to learndirectlearndirect is a brand new form of learning – that’sfor everyone!learndirect learning is designed with you in mind.Our courses are computer-based but don’t letthat bother you! The easiest way to get started isto go to one of the many learndirect centresaround the country. Our friendly staff will be onhand to help you out. You don’t need any expe-rience – we’ll take you through your learning stepby step. (http://www.learndirect.co.uk/personal;accessed at 03.03.10)

The following extract from a document onlifelong learning published by the EuropeanCommission provides a clear example ofwhat I propose to call the «new language oflearning»:

Placing learners and learning at the centre ofeducation and training methods and processes isby no means a new idea, but in practice, theestablished framing of pedagogic practices inmost formal contexts has privileged teachingrather than learning. /.../ In a high-technologyknowledge society, this kind of teaching-learningloses efficacy: learners must become proactiveand more autonomous, prepared to renew theirknowledge continuously and to respond con-structively to changing constellations of prob-lems and contexts. The teacher’s role becomesone of accompaniment, facilitation, mentoring,support and guidance in the service of learners’own efforts to access, use and ultimately createknowledge. (Commission of the European

Communities, 1998, p. 9; quoted in Field, 2000,p.136)

Although the concept of ‘learning’ hasbecome almost omnipresent in contemporaryeducational discourse, it is important to seethat the new language of learning is not theoutcome of a particular process or theexpression of a single underlying agenda.The new language of learning is the result ofa combination of different, partly even con-tradictory trends and developments. Thenew language of learning is, in other words,an effect of a range of events, rather than theintended outcome of a particular pro-gramme or agenda. There are at least fourtrends which, in one way or another, havecontributed to the rise of the new languageof learning.

New theories of learningOne influential development can be foundin the field of the psychology of learning andconcerns the emergence of constructivistand socio-cultural theories of learning (e.g.,Fosnot, 1996; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Theidea that learning is not a passive intake ofinformation, but that knowledge and under-standing are actively constructed by the lear-ner, often in co-operation with fellow-lear-ners, has shifted the attention away from theactivities of the teacher to the activities ofthe student. This has not only made learningmuch more central in the understanding ofthe process of education. Notions such as’scaffolding’ have provided a perspective anda language in which teaching can easily beredefined as facilitating learning.

PostmodernismThe impact of postmodernism on educationand educational theory has also contributedto the rise of the language of learning. Overthe past twenty years many authors haveargued that the project of education is a tho-



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roughly modern project, intimately connec-ted with the heritage of the Enlightenment(e.g., Usher & Edwards, 1994). As a result,the postmodern doubt about the possibilityand viability of the project of modernity hasraised fundamental questions about the pos-sibility and viability of education, especiallywith respect to the idea that educators canliberate and emancipate their students. If, ashas for example been argued by Giesecke(1985), postmodernism means that we havereached the end of education, what else canthere be left but learning?

The ‘silent explosion’The rise of ‘learning’ is not only to beaccounted for on the level of theoretical andconceptual shifts. As Field (2000, p. 35 ff.)has shown, more and more people are now-adays spending more and more of their time– and money – on all kind of different formsof learning, both inside and outside the for-mal settings of the established educationalinstitutions. There is not only conclusiveevidence that the volume and level of partic-ipation in formal adult leaning are increas-ing. There is also a rapidly growing marketfor non-formal forms of learning, such as fit-ness centres, sport clubs, self-help therapymanuals, internet learning, self-instructionalvideo’s, DVD’s and CD’s, etcetera. One ofthe most significant characteristics of whatField calls the «silent explosion of learning»,is that the new learning is far more individ-ualistic. Field also argues that the contentand purpose of adult learning have changed,in that many adult learners are primarilystruggling with themselves, for examplewith their body, their identity, and their rela-tionships. The individualistic and individual-ised nature of the activities in which the newadult learners are engaged, is one of the mostimportant reasons why the word learningseems such an appropriate concept to use.

The erosion of the welfare stateThe rise of ’learning’ can also be related tolarger socio-economic and political develop-ments, particularly the erosion of the welfarestate and the rise of neo-liberalism, some-thing that has happened in many Westerncountries for a combination of ideological(Thatcherism, Reaganism) and economicreasons (the 1973 oil crisis and the slowdownof the world economy in the last decades ofthe 20th century). Central to welfarism isthe idea of redistribution, so that provisionssuch as health care, social security and edu-cation can be made available to all citizens,and not only to those who can afford them.Although much of this is still in place inmany countries (albeit with increasing lev-els of public-private partnerships or evenfull-blown privatisation), the relationshipbetween governments and citizens has inmany cases changed into a relationshipbetween the state as provider of public serv-ices and taxpayers as consumers of theseservices.

«Value for money» has become the mainprinciple in many of the transactionsbetween the state and its taxpayers. This wayof thinking lies at the basis of the emergenceof a culture of accountability in educationand other public services, which has broughtabout ever-tighter systems of inspection andcontrol, and ever-more prescriptive educa-tional protocols. It also is the logic behindvoucher systems and the idea that parents, asthe «consumers» of the education of theirchildren, should ultimately decide whatshould happen in schools (for a critical anal-ysis see, e.g., Whitty, Power & Halpin, 1998;Tomlinson, 2002; Biesta, 2004). This way ofthinking introduces a logic which focuses onthe users or consumers of the educationalprovision and a very suitable name for theconsumer of education is, of course, «thelearner».



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If the foregoing suffices as an indication ofwhy the new language of learning may haveemerged – and I wish to emphasise onemore time that these developments are notthe outcome of one underlying agenda, arenot all necessary bad, and are to a certainextent simply contradictory – the next ques-tion to ask is what the impact of the new lan-guage of learning has been on the way inwhich we understand and speak about edu-cation. What is it, that can be said by meansof the new language of learning, and, moreimportantly, what is it that can no longer besaid by means of this language?

Against learning?

One of the main problems with the new lan-guage of learning is that it allows for a re-description of the process of education interms of an economic transaction, that is, atransaction in which (i) the learner is the(potential) consumer, the one who has certainneeds, in which (ii) the teacher, the educator,or the educational institution becomes theprovider, that is, the one who is there to meetthe needs of the learner, and where (iii) edu-cation itself becomes a commodity to be pro-vided or delivered by the teacher or educa-tional institution and to be consumed by thelearner. This is the ‘logic’ which says that edu-cational institutions and individual educatorsshould be flexible, that they should respond tothe needs of the learners, that they should givethe learners value for money, and perhapseven that they should operate on the principlethat the customer is always right. This is,without doubt, the world of learndirect®,where «you don’t need any experience,»where computer-based learning shouldn’t«bother you», and where «our friendly staffwill be on hand to help you out». It also is thelogic which implies that educators and educa-tional institutions should be accountable,since what ultimately constitutes the relation-

ship between learners/consumers and provid-ers is the payment that learners make, eitherdirectly or, in the case of state-funded educa-tion, indirectly through taxation.

In one respect it does indeed make senseto look at the process of education in theseterms, at least, that is, in order to redress theimbalances of a situation in which educationhas been mainly provider-led and inflexible.Access to education has, after all, everythingto do with such basic things as being able toattend school, college or university, and tra-ditionally those groups who were not able toorganise their lives around the requirementsand timetables of educational institutions(women, most notably), were simply ex-cluded from educational opportunities.Hence the importance of evening classes,open universities, and flexibility more gen-erally. In this respect it is also clear that edu-cational institutions and individual educatorsshould indeed respond to the needs of thelearners. To think of students as learners andof learners as customers can be a helpful wayof achieving precisely this.

But the more fundamental question iswhether the educational process itself can beunderstood – and should be understood – ineconomic terms, that is, as a situation inwhich the learner has certain needs andwhere it is the business of the educator tomeet these needs. I believe, following Fein-berg (2001), that this is not the case, and thatit is for precisely this reason that the compar-ison between an economic and an educa-tional transaction falls short. Why is this so?

In the case of an economic transaction wecan, in principle, assume that consumersknow what their needs are and that they knowwhat they want. (The «in principle» is impor-tant here, because we know all too well howconsumers’ needs are manufactured.) Is thisalso a valid assumption in the case of educa-tion? It may seem that most parents knowvery well what they want from the school to

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which they send their children. But this isonly true on a very general level (and mayperhaps only be true because there are strongcultural expectations about why childrenshould go to school and what to expect fromschools and schooling). But most parents dono – or not yet – send their children to schoolwith a detailed list of what they want theteacher to do.1

Like:

Dear Miss, Please give Mary 30 minutes of math-ematics instruction using method A, followed by15 minutes of remedial teaching, and after thatplease 20 minutes religious education, and a bit ofinteraction with the other children in her class aswell, please.

Parents send their children to school becausethey want them to be educated, but it is up tothe professional judgement and expertise ofthe teacher to make decisions about what thisparticular child actually needs. Here lies a fun-damental difference between what we couldcall the market model and the professionalmodel. As Feinberg (2001, p. 403) explains:

In market models consumers are supposed toknow what they need, and producers bid in priceand quality to satisfy them. In professional modelsthe producer not only services a need, but alsodefines it /.../ Sam goes to his physician complain-ing of a headache. Is it an aspirin or brain surgerythat he needs? Only the doctor knows.

Would the situation be different in the caseof adult learners? Presumably not. Adultsmay on average be more able to articulatewhat they want from education and hencewhat their needs are. But not only are theremany cases in which adults precisely engagein education in order to find out what it isthat they really want or need. We alsoshouldn’t forget the many accounts of adultsfor whom engaging in education was a life-

transforming event, an experience throughwhich they not only came to know what itwas that they really wanted or needed, butthrough which they also found a new self, anew identity (which is not to suggest thatfinding a new self or a new identity wasalways a positive experience; classicalexamples of this can be found in the litera-ture, e.g., Willy Russell’s Educating Rita, andGeorge Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion).

The first reason, therefore, to be againstlearning – that is, to be against a languagewhich makes it possible to present educationin terms of «meeting the needs of thelearner» – is that the underlying assumptionthat learners come to education with a clearunderstanding of what their needs are, is ahighly questionable assumption. It both mis-construes the role and position of the educa-tional professional in the process, and therole and position of the learner. It forgetsthat a major reason for engaging in educa-tion is precisely to find out what it is that oneactually needs – a process in which educa-tional professionals play a crucial rolebecause a major part of their expertise liesprecisely there.

The idea that education should be aboutmeeting the needs of the learner is also prob-lematic because it suggests a framework inwhich the only questions that can meaning-fully be asked about education are technicalquestions, that is questions about the effi-ciency and the effectiveness of the educationalprocess. The more important questions aboutthe content and purpose of education becomevirtually impossible to ask, other, that is, thanin response to the needs of the learner. As aresult, these questions not only become indi-vidualised, since it is assumed that the learnerknows – or should know – what he or shewants to learn and why he or she wants tolearn it. On a wider scale questions about thecontent and purpose of learning become sub-ject to the forces of the market. One effect of



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this is that, in order to attract learners, learningitself has to be depicted as easy, attractive,exciting, and what not more, which is pre-cisely what happens on the website of learndi-rect®. This not only undermines and erodesthe role of educational professionals in discus-sions about the content and purpose of edu-cation. It also creates a situation in whichthere are hardly any opportunities left fordemocratic deliberation about the contentand purpose of education and its role in soci-ety.

Now there may well be significant areas inwhich it should indeed be up to the individ-ual learner to decide about the content andpurpose of his or her learning. My pointhere is not to say that only some learningshould count as legitimate and respectable.But I do believe that questions about thecontent and purpose of learning should alsobe part of the educational process itself –they are, in other words, important educa-tional questions. I am, therefore, also sayingthat these questions should be seen as socialand interpersonal questions, and not simplyas questions of individual preference. Ques-tions about who we are and who we want tobecome through education, although ofimmense importance to ourselves, are alwaysalso questions about our relationships withothers and about our place in the social fab-ric. On a wider scale, questions about thecontent and purpose of education, are there-fore fundamentally political questions. Toleave an answer to these questions to theforces of the market, and we all know howmanipulative markets are in order to securetheir own future, deprives us of the opportu-nity to have a democratic say in the educa-tional reproduction and renewal of society.

There are, therefore, two argumentsagainst the new language of learning or, tobe more precise, against a line of thinkingthat is made possible by the new language oflearning. One problem is that the new lan-

guage of learning facilitates an economicunderstanding of the process of education,one in which the learner is supposed toknow what he or she wants, and where aprovider (a teacher, an educational institu-tion) is simply there to meet the needs of thelearner or, in more crude terms: to satisfy thecustomer. I have shown why I think thatsuch a depiction of the process of educationis problematic. The other problem with thelogic of the new language of learning is thatit makes it difficult to raise questions aboutthe content and purpose of education, otherthan in terms of what ‘the consumer’ or ‘themarket’ wants. This, as I have argued, poses athreat both to educational professionalismand to democracy.

For these reasons I believe that we shouldbe extremely cautious in using the languageof learning. Not only because such usemight undermine our educational profes-sionalism, but also because it might erode anopen, democratic discussion about educa-tion. But our attitude cannot simply be anegative one, and this is precisely why Ibelieve that we need to reclaim – or rather:reinvent – a language of education whichcan serve as an alternative for the language oflearning. To this task I will turn now.

From learning to education

I have argued that we shouldn’t understandthe educational relationship as a relationshipbetween a provider and a consumer. Butwhat, then, does constitute an educationalrelationship? And what kind of languagewould be appropriate to capture what is spe-cial about educational relationships? Myanswer to this question, a proposal for a lan-guage for education, centres around threeinterlocking concepts: trust, violence andresponsibility; or, to be more precise: trustwithout ground, transcendental violence,and responsibility without knowledge.



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Trust without groundWhere does education begin? It may,indeed, begin with a learner who wishes tolearn something, who seeks knowledge,skills, qualifications, change, or adventure,and who seeks a way to learn this and per-haps even someone to learn from. We can ofcourse try to put this whole process in neatboxes. The learner knows what he wants tolearn, so the provider must make sure that it isprecisely this, nothing more and nothing less,which the learner will learn. Hence learningcontracts, hence accountability, hence inspec-tion and control, and hence learndirect®. As itsays on their website: «learndirect is a brandnew form of learning», «learndirect learning isdesigned with you, the individual learner inmind» (www.learndirect.co.uk/personal).

However, even if one engages in neatlyorganised forms of learning, there is always arisk. Not only is there a risk that you won’tlearn what you wanted to learn. There is alsothe risk that you will learn things that youcouldn’t have imagined that you would learnor that you couldn’t have imagined that youwould have wanted to learn. And there is therisk that you will learn something that yourather didn’t want to learn, something aboutyourself, for example. To engage in learningalways entails the risk that learning may havean impact on you, that learning may changeyou. This means, however, that educationonly begins when the learner is willing totake a risk.

One way to express this, is to say that oneof the constituents of the educational rela-tionship and of education itself is trust. Whyare risk and trust connected? Basicallybecause trust is about those situations inwhich you do not know and cannot knowwhat will happen. Trust is by its very naturewithout ground, because if one’s trust weregrounded, that is, if one would know whatwas going to happen or how the person youhave put your trust in would act and

respond, trust would no longer be needed.Trust would then have been replaced by cal-culation. Trust, however, is about what isincalculable. This is not to suggest, of course,that trust should be blind. It is only meant tohighlight the fact that trust structurally andnot accidentally entails a moment of risk.

To negate or deny the risk involved inengaging in education is to miss a crucialdimension of education. To suggest thateducation can be and should be risk free,that learners don’t run any risk by engagingin education, or that ‘learning outcomes’can be know and specified in advance, is agross misrepresentation of what education isabout.

One could argue that the foregoing argu-ment depends on how one defines learningand also on what kind of learning isinvolved. After all, not all learning entails asimilar amount of risk and some forms oflearning may be quite predictable in theiroutcomes. Although I am inclined to arguethat all learning may lead to unexpectedchange, and that for that reason there is nofundamental different between driving les-sons, an art history course or learning towrite, it is indeed important to look at theway in which we define an understandlearning itself. This then brings me to thesecond dimension of the language of educa-tion I wish to propose, a dimension calledtranscendental violence.

Transcendental violenceWhat is learning? Psychologists, both of anindividualistic and a socio-cultural bent,have developed a range of different explana-tions of how learning, or more precisely: theprocess of learning takes place. Althoughthey differ in their description and explana-tion of the process, e.g., by focusing onchanges in the brain or on legitimate periph-eral participation, many explanations oflearning assume that learning has to do with



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the acquisition of something ‘external’,something which existed before the act oflearning and which, as a result of learning,becomes the possession of the learner. Thisscheme is what many people usually have inmind when they say that someone haslearned something.

But we can also look at learning from aslightly different angle, and see it as a‘response’ to a ‘question’. Rather than seeinglearning as the attempt to acquire, to master,to internalise, and what other possessivemetaphors we can think of, we can also seelearning as a reaction to a disturbance, as anattempt to reorganise or reintegrate as aresult of disintegration. We can look atlearning as responding to what is other ordifferent, to what challenges, irritates anddisturbs us, rather than as the acquisition ofsomething that we want to possess. Bothways of looking at learning might be equallyvalid, depending, that is, on the situation inwhich we raise the question about the valid-ity of a certain conception of learning. Butthe second definition is educationally themore significant, if it is conceded that ineducation we are ultimately concerned withquestions about the subjectivity or, in moresociological terms, the agency of the learner(Biesta, 2003a).

While learning as acquisition is onlyabout getting more and more, learning asresponding is about showing who you areand where you stand. It is about what I havecalled elsewhere a process of «coming intopresence»2 (Biesta, 1999, 2001). Cominginto presence is not something that individ-uals can do alone and by themselves. Tocome into presence means to come intopresence in a social and intersubjectiveworld, a world we share with others who arenot like us. Coming into presence also isn’tsomething that we should understand as theact and the decision of a pre-social individ-ual. This is first of all because it can be

argued that the very structure of our subjec-tivity, the very structure of who we are isthoroughly social. Even, for example, whenwe utter words like «I» or «I wish», we use alanguage that in a fundamental sense is not ofour own (Derrida, 1998). But it is also, andmore importantly, because what makes usinto a unique, singular being – me, and notyou – is precisely to be found in the way inwhich we respond to the other, to the ques-tion of the other, to the other as question(Levinas, 1989, 1998; Biesta, 2003b).

If education is indeed concerned withsubjectivity and agency, then we shouldthink of education as the situation or processwhich provides opportunity for individualsto come into presence, that is, to show whothey are and where they stand. What does itmean to provide such opportunities? It firstof all requires a situation in which students,learners are indeed able to response, areindeed able to show who they are and wherethey stand. This not only means that theremust be something that they can respond to,that there is a situation in which learning isnot confined to acquisition and copying. Italso requires that educators and educationalinstitutions care about what their studentsthink and feel and where they are allowed toexpress their thoughts and feelings. Thisdoes not mean, of course, that any thoughtor feeling should simply be accepted. Com-ing into presence is not about self-expres-sion; it is about responding to what and whois other and different. Coming into presenceis, in other words, thoroughly relational andintersubjective.

This means that coming into presencerequires careful attention to hear and seewhat and who is other and different. Com-ing into presence is as much about saying,doing, acting and responding, as it is aboutlistening, hearing and seeing. In all cases,therefore, coming into presence is aboutbeing challenged by otherness and differ-



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ence. Teachers and educators have a crucialrole to play in this, not only by confrontinglearners with what and who is other and dif-ferent – and this raises crucial questionsabout curriculum and the social organisationof schools – but also by challenging studentsto respond by asking such fundamental ques-tions as «What do you think about it?»,«Where do you stand?», «How will yourespond?» (see Rancière, 1991, p. 36; see alsoMasschelein, 1998, p. 144; Biesta, 1998).

Coming into presence is, therefore, notnecessarily a pleasant and easy process sinceit is about challenging students, confrontingthem with otherness and difference and ask-ing them difficult questions (Biesta, 2001).This suggests that, in a sense, there is a vio-lent dimension to education, and I want toargue that it is important not to deny theviolence involved in coming, or maybe weshould say calling, into presence. Derrida, ina discussion with Levinas about what consti-tutes subjectivity, refers to this kind of vio-lence as transcendental violence (Derrida,1978). It is violent in that it doesn’t leaveindividuals alone, in that it asks difficultquestions and creates difficult situations. Butit is precisely through this that coming intopresence becomes possible. The latter iswhat Derrida refers to with the notion of’transcendental’ which, in the philosophicalliterature, denotes conditions of possibility,i.e., denotes what needs to occur if cominginto presence is a possibility. Acknowledgingthe difficult character of education is, ofcourse, a far cry from the world of learndi-rect® which wants to depict learning as some-thing that is easy, without risk and withoutdeep, transforming and disturbing chal-lenges.

Responsibility without knowledgeIf this is what constitutes an educational rela-tionship and makes education possible, thenit is immediately clear that teachers carry an

immense responsibility. This responsibility ismore than a responsibility for the quality ofteaching or for successfully meeting theneeds of the learner. If teaching is about cre-ating opportunities for the student to comeinto presence, if it is about asking difficultquestions, then it becomes clear that the firstresponsibility of the teacher is a responsibil-ity for the subjectivity of the student, for thatwhich allows the student to be a unique, sin-gular being. Taking responsibility for the sin-gularity of the student, for the uniqueness ofthis particular student, is not something thathas to do with calculation. It rather belongsto the very structure of responsibility that wedo not know what we take responsibility for,if taking is the right word in the first place.Responsibility is unlimited, because, as Der-rida argues, a limited responsibility is just anexcuse to credit oneself with good con-science. He writes (Derrida, 1992):

When the path is clear and given, when a certainknowledge opens up the way in advance, thedecision is already made, it might as well be saidthat there is none to make; irresponsibly, and ingood conscience, one simply applies or imple-ments a program... (p. 41)

It makes of action the applied consequence,the simple application of a knowledge or know-how. It makes of ethics and politics a technology.No longer of the order of practical reason ordecision, it begins to be irresponsible. (p. 45)

This means, then, that the responsibility ofteachers and educators for individual stu-dents or learners is not, cannot be basedupon knowledge about what one takesresponsibility for. Responsibility withoutknowledge is, then, the third aspect of thelanguage of education that I want to pro-pose. It is this dimension which makes thework of teachers and educators so difficult if,that is, they really engage with this responsi-bility and do not deny its existence.



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For education

In this article I have examined the new lan-guage of learning. I have given some exam-ples and manifestations of this language andam sure that there are many more examplesof the working of this language, not only inhow others speak about education butmaybe even in how we ourselves have cometo speak about education. I have suggestedthat the emergence of the new language oflearning should be seen as the unintendedoutcome of a range of different develop-ments: new theories of learning, the post-modern critique of modern education, thesilent explosion of learning and social andpolitical transformations in Western socie-ties, most notably the dismantling of thewelfare state.

It should be emphasised that the develop-ments that have led to the rise of the new lan-guage of learning are not all bad. New theo-ries of learning have definitely had a positiveimpact on educational practice. The post-modern critique of modern education haseffectively exposed authoritarian educationalstructures and practices. The actual increase oflearning, the «silent explosion», is not neces-sary bad either, although it may have contrib-uted to the idea that learning can be easy. I amfar less positive about the social and politicaltransformations, particularly the rise of neo-liberalism and the marketisation of education(for an excellent overview and critical analysissee Apple, 2000).

One way, therefore, to summarise my cri-tique is to say that while the new language oflearning has had a positive impact in someareas, it has proven to be a language verysuitable for those who want to think of edu-cation in strictly economic terms, that is, asan exchange between a provider and a con-sumer. This means, however, that we, edu-cators and educationalists, have ourselvescontributed to the rise of the new language

of learning, often with the best intentions,but, as I have argued, with problematic con-sequences both for the way in which weunderstand the process of education itself,and for the possibility to have professional,educational and democratic discussionsabout the content and purpose of education.

This is why I have argued that we need todevelop an alternative for the new languageof learning and I have suggested some build-ing blocks for such a language. I have empha-sised that we should acknowledge that engag-ing in learning always entails a risk, and thattrust is therefore an important constituent ofeducational situations and relationships. I havefurther argued that we should acknowledgethe violent dimension of all education that isconcerned with subjectivity and agency, or, asI prefer to call it, with the coming into pres-ence of unique, individual beings. Central tomy argument here has been the claim that wecan only come into presence, can only showwho we are and where we stand in relation toand, most importantly, in response to whatand who is other and different. To expose stu-dents, learners to otherness and difference andto challenge them to respond is therefore oneof the most basic tasks for teachers and educa-tors. It is an extremely difficult task andimplies a huge responsibility for those whodare to take on this task. This responsibility forthe uniqueness, the subjectivity of students,learners, is an unlimited responsibility, that is,a responsibility that cannot be calculated. It isa responsibility without knowledge.

I began this article by emphasising that Iwanted to make a modest contribution tothe development of an educational language.My outline of a language for education shouldbe considered in this light. It is a possible lan-guage to talk about education in a way that isdifferent from the new language of learning,yet it is only one possibility that I wish to offerfor further discussion and challenge. My hopeis that languages such as the one suggested in



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this article may function as critical remindersthat education is, can be, and should be aboutsomething else and something more thanwhat the learning managers, the learningfacilitators, and the technicians of the newlanguage of learning may want us to believe.

Notes

An earlier version of this article was pre-sented as invited keynote lecture at theAnnual Conference of the Nordic Educa-tional Research Association (NFPF) inCopenhagen, March 2003. I would like tothank the organisers of the conference forthe invitation. In preparing this article I hadthe opportunity to discuss my ideas withseveral colleagues. I would like to thank thelate Martin Bloomer, Rob Lawy, WilliamRichardson, Jan Bengtsson, Tomas Englundand Lars Løvlie for their helpful responses tomy ideas.1 It is interesting to see how the relation-ship between doctors and their patients ischanging as a result of the availability of avast range of medical information on theinternet. This is not yet so in the case of edu-cation, though we should neither underesti-mate the power of the internet, nor the will-ingness if not eagerness of some educatorsand educational entrepreneurs to suggest,through advertising and the internet, thateasy answers to educational problems areavailable.2 The idea of ’coming into presence’ as acentral educational concept is meant as analternative for the modern idea of emancipa-tion as a process that relies on rationality andresults in autonomy. It is an attempt, in otherwords, to articulate a «traditional» educatio-nal concern in response to postmodern andpost-humanist challenges.

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