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ERIC Number: EJ1130044
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-1857
EISSN: N/A
The Experience of Strangeness in Education: Camus, Jean-Baptiste Clamence and the Little Ease
Curzon-Hobson, Aidan
Educational Philosophy and Theory, v49 n3 p264-272 2017
When "The Myth of Sisyphus" describes those who live in the "rarefied air of the absurd" (p. 86), Camus uses the word fidelity. This signals a recognition of both defeat and the demand for struggle. This suggests a humility. Education can be said to have this characteristic; it is constantly in service to the new and yet understands these come with limits. And these limits are overcome as education develops the mind to see differently and change the world we live in. This type of education has fidelity to the absurd because of its cognisance of both aspiration and failure: it is aware of its useful potential to help make sense of the world, and yet it understands this requires disjuncture from what has come before. It promises the Sisyphean climb and return. Education does this consciously and deliberately. Education, in some ways, is therefore absurd. Or at least, from time to time it finds itself in the rarefied air. If this is the case then how should practitioners interpret or care for the absurd experience and what exactly might this look like in educational contexts. This article chooses "The Fall" for the purpose of better understanding the experience of absurd anxiety in the context of education. It uses, as an original device, the imagery of the "little ease" to explore this feeling and the forces underpinning it.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A