A Focus on Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper sets out the distinction between educare and educere – key etymological and foundational terms that inform the word (and notion) of ‘education’. Where educare embodies the preservation and passing-on of existing knowledge, constructing and shaping learners through the application of static and institutionally controlled knowledge. Through educere, alternative forms of educational experience can become recognised and prioritised; with a focus on educere, alternative forms of pedagogic practice can be conceived and developed, that set out to liberate learners, and facilitate the creative and critical production of new forms of fractured knowledge. To consolidate and promote the notion of developing an educere approach, the paper will define and develop the Deleuzoguattarian/Scottist concept of haecceity, which refers to the subjective and unique properties of individuation and selfhood. Adapted from the Latin ‘haec’, which means “this”, haecceity articulates the specificity of subjective and individuated “thisness”. This unique specificity is often counterposed against the more generalised term quiddity, taken from the Latin term quid, which means “what”, and is equated with the inter-human notion of “whatness”. Where quiddity refers to the collective sharing of a common myth, or idea, haecceity refers to the fractured and interior substance of difference. The quiddity of knowledge refers to the general circulation of pre-established knowledge-work, scattered across external informal and formal learning environments. Subjected to the parameters of haecceity however, the interior experience of knowledge equates to a malleation as a shifting and flexible text; this incursive and rhythmically fluctuating knowledge, inhabits our interior worlds in odd and relativistic ways. The paper will argue that haecceity can be developed – as a conceptual prototype and embryonic pedagogic praxis, with a remit to identify and target alternative forms of educere-based knowledge-creation.