Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on author
- Acknowledgments
- one Introduction
- two Conceptual frameworks: towards geographies of alternative education
- three Alternative learning spaces in the UK: background to the case studies used in this book
- four Connection/disconnection: positioning alternativelearning spaces
- five Mess/order: materials, timings, feelings
- six Movement/embodiment: learning habits (I)
- seven Inter/personal relations: scale, love and learning habits (II)
- eight Towards the ‘good life’: alternative visions of learning, love and life-itself
- nine Conclusion: geographies of alternative education and the value of autonomous learning spaces
- References
- Index
eight - Towards the ‘good life’: alternative visions of learning, love and life-itself
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on author
- Acknowledgments
- one Introduction
- two Conceptual frameworks: towards geographies of alternative education
- three Alternative learning spaces in the UK: background to the case studies used in this book
- four Connection/disconnection: positioning alternativelearning spaces
- five Mess/order: materials, timings, feelings
- six Movement/embodiment: learning habits (I)
- seven Inter/personal relations: scale, love and learning habits (II)
- eight Towards the ‘good life’: alternative visions of learning, love and life-itself
- nine Conclusion: geographies of alternative education and the value of autonomous learning spaces
- References
- Index
Summary
Our biological life itself has entered the domain of decision and choice […]. This is what it means to live in an age of biological citizenship, of ‘somatic ethics’, and of vital politics. […T]hose who I have termed ‘biological citizens’ are having to reformulate their own answers to Kant's three famous questions – What can I know? What must I do? What may I hope? (Rose, 2007, pp 254-7)
A maxim is just another word for a secular prayer. It is a statement of expression in our shared desire in the sense of potentia. It is also an act of faith in our capacity to make a difference and as such it is an expression of generosity and love of the world. It is also a plea, an open question, a reaching out, or an invitation to the cosmic dance. It is an imperative, an injunction to endure in the sense both of lasting in time and of suffering in space, but it is also a spiritual gesture, a declaration of love. It is a political act of defiance of social norms and resistance against the inertia of habits […]; an act of politics as autopoesis, or affirmative self-creation, not of an atomized self […] but rather as a collective, multirelational nomadic subject [who is] active in the world. (Braidotti, 2011, p 360)
Are there more everyday tactics for cultivating an ability to discern the vitality of matter? (Bennett, 2010, p 119)
“For me, life is learning. If you stop learning, you’re dead.” (Dana, homeschooler, London)
Throughout this book, I have tried to provide a sense of the liveliness of alternative learning spaces. From the outset, I have not wanted simply to discern the role that physical, bounded spaces (the classroom, the forest, the farm) might play in directing children's learning. I have continually insisted upon the importance of the spatialities of alternative education, which, bearing in mind the previous chapters, can be understood as entanglements of materiality, habit, feeling, temporal rhythm, interpersonal relationships and much more besides.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Geographies of Alternative EducationDiverse Learning Spaces for Children and Young People, pp. 209 - 234Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2013