Introduction
Practices of university teaching and learning have long been associated with interrelated human experiences. A teacher teaches, and students learn. However, over the last three decades, since the post-critical turn, teaching and learning have been considered as interrelated human actions in the sense that, as a teacher performs the act of teaching, so he or she equally learns. Similarly, as students learn what they are taught, so they too become inclined towards teaching. In other words, it is not simply a matter of a teacher performing an act of teaching, and alternatively, a student learning. Rather, both teaching and learning have become intertwined activities in the sense that teaching–learning exists together. For purposes of this book, I refer to such an interrelationship of teaching–learning , a pedagogical encounter. By implication, pedagogical encounters constitute interrelated and inclusive human experiences of teaching and learning.
My contention is that pedagogical encounters among university teachers and students can be more inclusive if enacted upon through a notion of caring whose primary aim is to get participants (students and teachers) engaging evocatively. When students and teachers are evoked within pedagogical encounters, the possibility is always there for them to be aroused by one another’s understandings and rational judgements. Put differently, when teachers teach, the possibility is always there for students to learn, thus, opening them up to understandings of what they have been taught. Students’ potentialities are evoked if they make sense of their learning in one way or another. I want to suggest here that something else, in addition to teaching and learning, ought to take place to make pedagogical encounters more inclusive. Based on my own experiences in higher education and my readings on the matter, I am persuaded that the virtue of caring is a way in which pedagogical encounters can be enhanced. In this chapter, in reference to Carol Gilligan’s work, I endeavour to give an account of what it means to evoke the potentialities of students and teachers with the aim to show how caring manifests in pedagogical – mostly teaching and learning – encounters, in particular focusing on how such encounters can become more inclusive.
An Ethic of Care as an Act of Inclusion
When Carol Gilligan (1982) produced her international bestseller, In a different voice , which she began writing in the early 1970s at a time of resurgence in feminist studies, it seemed obvious to her that as a psychologist ‘differences in the body, in family relationships, and in societal and cultural position would make a difference psychologically’ (Gilligan, 1982: xi). Little did she know at the time that her contribution to feminist scholarship would revolutionise and inspire educational research. Of interest to me, is her position on an ethic of care that is highlighted on occasions in her book, and its implications for pedagogical encounters.
In the main, her argument focuses on women’s sense of integrity , which she contends is intertwined with an ethic of care. Women’s integrity becomes manifest when they see themselves as women in ‘a relationship of connection ’ with others, such as children, men and other women (Gilligan, 1982: 171). In other words, for Gilligan, an ethic of care is constituted in human interrelationships based on an authenticity of inclusion. I am reminded of an event that sparked my own entrance into academic life. Professor Shirley Pendlebury, who happened to be one of the examiners of my PhD, arranged that I present my first ever academic paper at the International Network of Philosophers of Education (INPE) Biennial Conference held in Johannesburg in August 1996. She was extremely caring in the sense that she offered me accommodation in her home in Melville for the duration of the conference. I slept in her personal library. Not only did I have the opportunity to browse through some of her books, but the conference attendance also initiated my professional career in the international community of philosophers of education. I subsequently attended INPE conferences in Sydney (2000), Oslo (2002), Madrid (2004), Malta (2006), Kyoto (2008), Addis Ababa (2012, as one of the guest speakers to co-deliver the Terrence McLaughlin Memorial Lecture), Cosenza (2016), only having missed Ankara (2010) and Bogota (2014). I am extremely grateful to Shirley and later Professor Paul Smeyers who included me through their care into the works of the INPE in which I eventually served as executive member between 2012 and 2018. Ever since, I remained in a relational connection with the organisation that advances global academic interests in philosophy of education.
Now, when a genuine relationship of inclusiveness is cultivated by men and women, such a relationship rests on ‘the premise of nonviolence’ (Gilligan, 1982: 174). Simply put, an ethic of care manifests in human relationships and is constituted by nonviolence. Personally and professionally, I was never affronted within the INPE, except on one occasion when a presentation in Madrid (2004) was rendered in opposition to the idea of an African philosophy of education. As an African, I felt somewhat let down because fellow South Africans deemed it important to take issue with a notion of philosophy of education, which they considered antithetical to any plausible notion of the concept. For Penny Enslin and Kai Horsthemke, an indigenous African philosophy of education, particularly the notion of ubuntu (humanness and human interdependence) did not have the academic feasibility to warrant an existence as a defensible philosophy of education. Of course, I disagreed. Until recently, when I encountered Penny again at the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) conference in Oxford in 2018, she softly asked me whether I still had a problem with her (Penny’s) criticism of African philosophy of education. In a caringly inclusive manner – as Gilligan would assert – I said that any philosophy of education – including an African one for that matter – ought to be subjected to criticism if it warrants an existence as a philosophy of education. It is not so much my encounter with Penny at the breakfast table that reminds me of our ongoing friendship in academe, but more profoundly the practice of inclusive caring that seemed to have informed our relationship as peers for many years. Indeed, an ethic of inclusive care always characterise my professional relations with academic friends – a relationship of nonviolence where friends co-exist in an atmosphere of mutual criticism as espoused by Gilligan.
At least, three aspects emerge from Gilligan’s understanding of an ethic of care: firstly, caring is a form of human attachment (Gilligan, 1982: 63) according to which humans do not act hurtfully towards others (Gilligan, 1982: 51). The latter implies that people cannot be silenced when they speak in their own voices – that is, they do not experience a violation and exclusion when they proffer a different point of view. Penny and Kai proffered a different understanding of an African philosophy of education. Yet, we have not been detached from one another’s work. We remain attached within the encounter without harming, ridiculing or caricaturing one another. Doing so, would not only undermine an ethic of care, but also open up the possibility of excluding one another from and within encounters. Although, at a crucial time during South Africa’s post-apartheid years in the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, emerging black academics vociferously considered an alignment with genuine African scholarship as a way to express their allegiance to a transformative democratic agenda. Any attempt that seemed to have jeopardised the aspiration of black scholarship for a legitimate philosophy of African education, was considered unjust and contrary to the transformation of the higher education (HE) agenda. With this background in mind, I witnessed glaring disagreements among scholars who defended the notion of an African philosophy of education, and those ...