Thinking, Childhood, and Time

Thinking, Childhood, and Time: Contemporary Perspectives on the Politics of Education is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notion of childhood and its place in a philosophical education. Contributors consider children’s experiences of time, space, embodiment, and thinking. By acknowledging Hannah Arendt’s notion that every child brings a new beginning into the world, they address the question of how educators can be more responsive to the Otherness that childhood offers, while assuming that most educational models follow either a chronological model of child development or view children as human beings that are lacking. The contributors explore childhood as a philosophical concept in children, adults, and even beyond human beings—Childhood as a (forgotten) dimension of the world. Contributors also argue that a pedagogy that does not aim for an "exodus of childhood," but rather responds to the arrival of a new human being responsibly (dialogically), fosters a deeper appreciation of the newness that children bring in order to sensitize us for our own Childhood as adults as well and allow us to welcome other forms of childhood in the world. As a whole, this book argues that the experience of natality, such as the beginning of life, is not chronologically determined, but rather can occur more than once in a human life and beyond. Scholars of philosophy, education, psychology, and childhood studies will find this book particularly useful.

Walter Omar Kohan is professor in the Childhood Studies Department at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Barbara Weber is associate professor and program chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at the University of British Columbia.

Acknowledgments Part One: Phenomenological Explorations of Time, Thinking and Embodiment Chapter 1: Childhood and the Genesis of Time: A Phenomenological Approach James Mensch Chapter 2: Child and Time: A Phenomenological Journey into the Human Conditions of Education Barbara Weber Chapter 3: Think Like a Girl: Scout's Time and Experience in To Kill a Mockingbird Peter Costello Chapter 4: Listening, Phronein and the First Principle of Happiness Pablo Muruzábal Lamberti Chapter 5: Thinking and the Play of Being Michael A. Bonnett Chapter 6: Philosophia Ludens for Children: A Proposal to Play and to Think Annalisa Caputo Part Two: Decolonial and Postructuralist Perspectives on the Politics of Education Chapter 7: Becoming Child: Wild Being and the Post-Human David Kennedy Chapter 8: Paulo Freire and the Childhood of a Philosophical and Educational Life Walter Omar Kohan Chapter 9: Democratic Child's Play: Natality, Responsible Education, and Decolonial Praxis Toby Rollo Chapter 10: