In this paper, I draw together myriad theoretical and philosophical sources to think through the intensification of emotion amid and emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. I begin with three narratives from my own teaching and learning, which ground the subsequent conversation. I then characterize the current movement in educational theorizing known…

This paper seeks to revisit the concept of "pedagogy of discomfort" through the combined lenses of Lauren Berlant's work on "inconvenience" and recent theorization of "affective infrastructure" to clarify how an infrastructural understanding of "discomfort-as-inconvenience" might provide deeper insights…

The pandemic made us hold our breath for a return to "normal." But education in "normal" times involves race-based violence and class-based inequality that the pandemic simply made plainer to see. Reviewing the impacts of the pandemic and action for racial justice over the last two years, I show how the dislocation of the…

We are witnessing what can only be called an anti--critical thinking trend in contemporary society. In this brief essay I want to describe how and why critical thinking is in crisis, and what this means for the promotion of critical thinking as an educational aim. Several of my examples show how this crisis has distorted the public debate over…

One area that is almost certain to be of some concern in the coming wave of COVID-related publications is the question of home versus school as "learning environments" -- as specifiable sets of conditions for facilitating and shaping the ongoing learning process. "Learning," in turn, is conventionally understood as a…

COVID-19 reveals the way single causes have multiple effects on children. Proponents of evidence-based education, like their colleagues in medicine, need to attend to the inevitable side effects produced by programs and policies. I explain why continuing motivation to learn is one outcome that no responsible evaluation should omit.

This article extends initial ideas on what hope is, why it matters to democracy, and how to teach it in schools, which were first presented by Sarah M. Stitzlein in her book "Learning How to Hope: Reviving Democracy through Our Schools and Civil Society" (Oxford University Press, 2020). It accounts for recent obstacles to hope,…

Homeschooling was occasionally a subject of popular interest pre-COVID, when media reported horrific cases of child abuse under the guise of homeschooling, or when controversies erupted over efforts in state legislatures or local school boards to introduce very modest oversight measures. COVID made homeschooling something nearly every parent…

Philosophical discussions about leisure time often take place on an abstract level. But leisure time does not exist a priori to lived experience in concreate situations. Its existence, or the lack thereof, is often predicated on the material conditions of daily life. In this article the very real conditions of indebted life are the starting point…

This article focuses on ancient Daoist wisdom, together with its associated principle of "yin-yang," and their contemporary significance in terms of how they might be applied within today's classrooms as foundations for a harmonious world. It does so by illustrating the significance of Daoism and "yin-yang" from both historical…

This essay elaborates on the notion of risk in relation to democratically challenging situations in education. This refers to situations in which liberal democratic values are potentially challenged, such as in teaching about controversial issues and in moments of expressions of hurtful speech, which can create in teachers an ambivalence for how…

This paper takes a philosophically informed approach to what it means to make sense of the world. Specifically, it asks how understanding might be enhanced when we listen to young children who are labelled with disabilities. To address this question, I describe a lesson I taught as a guest teacher in which my understanding of both a rock and an…

This article explores what it means to include intellectual disability (ID) in philosophical discourse and in the philosophy classroom. Taking Audre Lorde's claim that "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" as a starting point, it asks how certain forms of cognitive ableism have excluded ID from the…

A continued gap exists in student achievement between Indigenous and non- Indigenous students in the British Columbia school system. This article analyzes the balance of success and failure of the Accountability Framework, a provincial program designed to increase graduation rates in the province. In order to understand the successes and failures…

In this article, we aim to extend the existing literature on the theory of transformational school leadership through a neo-Daoist lens. Focussing on the writings of the third-century Chinese philosopher Wang Bi, we make three arguments. First, his ideas promote a transformational leader who effects change through ziran (spontaneity or natural…