Hannah Arendt

1
Hannah Arendt

• The possibilities for and impoverishment of
  inclusive education

2
Introduction

• Why is inclusion important?
• How might we include persons within educational
  institutions?
• What does it mean to be excluded within and from
  educational institutions?
• What sort of educational settings do we wish to
  include ourselves and others into?

3
Why is inclusion important?

• Arendt and human plurality

4
To understand the world

• Men in the plural, that is men in so far as they
  live and move and act in this world, can
  experience meaningfulness only because they can
  talk with and make sense to each other and
  themselves.
• (Arendt, 1958 4)

5
To become who we are by being with others

• Arendts table in a common world we are
  positioned in a space that relates and separates
  men at the same time (Arendt, 1958 52).
• To enter into a public space - what Arendt (1958)
  calls a common world - is to realise the human
  condition of plurality, that is, of living as a
  distinct and unique being among equals (Arendt,
  1958 178).

6
To realise our natality

• We are new in the world and we bring newness to
  the world but only when we act and speak
• Action has the closest connection with the
  human condition of natality the new beginning
  inherent in birth can make itself felt in the
  world only because the newcomer possesses the
  capacity of beginning something anew, that is, of
  acting.
• (Arendt, 1958 9)

7
To realise our natality

• Actions 'disclose the "who," the unique and
  distinct identity of the agent' to agent
  themselves and to others (Arendt, 1958 180).
• But 'behaviour' reduces a person to what they
  are, to the 'qualities' each individual
  'necessarily shares with others' (Arendt, 1958
  181).
• Arendt The essence of education is natality
  (Arendt, 1968a 174).

8
How might we include persons within educational
institutions?
9
School and classroom cultures

• Schutz explores the implications of Arendts
  model of public space for actual classroom
  practice, and imagines a classroom in which
  teaching and learning is not dominated by the
  teacher, or by a few articulate students, but
  where, the perspectives of all are taken
  into account (Schutz, 2001 101).
• Students must feel safe enough to be as honest
  as possible in their contributions (Schutz,
  2001 101).
• The inclusive moment the point at which the
  differences between us begin to make a difference
  to us.

10
What does it mean to be excluded within and from
educational institutions?

• Arendt on the rise of society and the crisis
  in education

11
The rise of society

• Even the smallest act in the most limited
  circumstances bears the seed of boundlessness
  (Arendt, 1958 190).
• The desire to reduce 'uncertainty and to save
  human affairs from their frailty' fuelled an
  'attempt to eliminate action' (Arendt, 1958
  230).
• In the quest for the feeling of certainty
  (emphasis in the original, Dewey, 1929/1960 26),
  we replaced public concerns with private
  concerns.
• We lost the world that lies in between people
  (Arendt, 1968b 12).

12
The rise of society and exclusion in education

• the functionalist quest for rationality, order,
  and certainty in the field of education (Skrtic,
  1991 153).
• Arendt a science of teaching (Arendt 1968a
  183).
• Greene (1978 28) technology of teaching
• Labour government inclusion involves utilising
  specialist expertise and resources (DfES, 2004
  25), because inclusion must encompass teaching
  and curriculum appropriate to the childs needs
  (DfEE, 1997 44).

13
The loss of what is common in education

• Labour government inclusive education helps a
  school become more effective at responding to
  the needs of individual pupils (DfES, 2004, 31).
  
• 'personalised learning'
• teaching assistants who provide students with
  one-to-one support
• 'Individual Education Plans'.

14

• Tony Blair
• The need to differentiate provision to
  individual aptitudes within schools often took
  second place. Inclusion too readily became an end
  in itself, rather than the means to identify and
  provide better for the talents of each individual
  pupil.
• (Blair, 2001)

15
The loss of who we are replaced by what
needs we are deemed to have

• Walt Whitman (1892/2000) reminds us that, To
  have great poets, there must be great audiences,
  too, and what is true of poets is true of all of
  us.
• Arendts observation Nothing and nobody exists
  in this world whose very being does not
  presuppose a spectator (emphasis in the
  original, Arendt, 1971 19).
• Reduced to our behaviour, to what we are, we
  are excluded within an educational setting.

16
What sort of educational settings do we wish to
include ourselves and others into?
17
Arendts view of schooling

• Arendt children can thrive only in
  concealment, while adults need to be shown to
  all in the full light of the public world
  (Arendt, 1968a 188).
• the essence of educational activity to cherish
  and protect the child against the world
  (Arendt, 1968a 192).
• The function of the school is to teach
  children what the world is like and not to
  instruct them in the art of living (Arendt,
  1968a 195).

18
Criticisms of Arendts view of schooling

• A tension
• schools can and should be private spaces
• force of 'the social
• 'learning is a way of being in the world, not a
  way of coming to know about it' (Hanks, 1991
• 24).
• Giroux education must be treated as a public
  good - as a crucial site where students gain a
  public voice and come to grips with their own
  power (Giroux, 2002 432).

19

• Lies
• Lying to the young is wrong.
• Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
• Telling them that Gods in his heaven
• and alls well with the world is wrong.
• They know what you mean. They are people too.
• Tell them the difficulties cant be counted,
• and let them see not only what will be
• but see with clarity these present times.
• Say obstacles exist they must encounter,
• sorrow comes, hardship happens.
• The hell with it. Who never knew
• the price of happiness will not be happy.
• (Yevtushenko, 1962)

20
Conclusion

• In an inclusive educational institution,
  diversity more than breathes diversity is the
  institutions life-breath.

21
References

• Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition (University
  of Chicago Press Chicago)
• Arendt, H. (1968a) Between Past and Future eight
  exercises in political thought (Revised edition,
  New York The Viking Press)
• Arendt, H. (1968b) Men in Dark Times (New York
  Harcourt, Brace World)
• Arendt, H. (1971) The life of the mind (London,
  Harcourt).
• Blair, T. (2001) Speech to the Conference of
  School Leaders at 10 Downing Street, 12 February
  Online http//www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page15
  80.asp 02/04/04
• Dewey, J. (1929/1960) The Quest for Certainty A
  Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action,
  in J. A. Boydston, (ed.) John Dewey The Later
  Work, 1925-1953 Volume 4 1929 (Carbondale and
  Edwardsville Southern Illinois University Press)

22

• DfEE (1997) Excellence for all children meeting
  special educational needs (London Stationery
  Office)
• DfES (2004) Removing Barriers to Achievement -
  The Governments Strategy for SEN (London
  Stationery Office)
• Giroux, H.A. (2002) Neoliberalism, Corporate
  Culture, and the Promise of Higher Education The
  University as a Democratic Public Sphere, Harvard
  Educational Review, 72.4, pp. 425-463
• Greene, M. (1978) Teaching The Question of
  Personal Reality, Teachers College Record, 80.1,
  pp. 23-35

23

• Hanks, W. F. (1991) Forward, in J. Lave E.
  Wenger, (Eds.) Situated Learning Legitimate
  Peripheral Participation (Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press)
• Skrtic, T. M. (1991) The Special Education
  Paradox Equity as the Way to Excellence, Harvard
  Educational Review, 61.2, pp.148-206
• Slee, R., Weiner, G. and Tomlinson, S. (Eds)
  (1988) School Effectiveness for Whom? (London
  The Falmer Press).
• Schutz, A. (2001) Contesting Utopianism Hannah
  Arendt and the Tensions of Democratic Education,
  in M. Gordon, (ed.) Hannah Arendt and Education
  Renewing our common world (Colorado, Westview
  Press)
• Whitman, W. (1892/2000) Prose Work (Philadelphia
  David McKay) Online www.bartleby.com/229/. 23
  May 2005