Not "All Children Can Learn," Nor Should They

• In Event: 33.079 - Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 33.079-20 - Breaking Habits/Thinking Differently: New Visions of Philosophy and Education

Abstract

This paper offers a critical examination of the phrase “All Children Can Learn” which is arguably one of the key shibboleths of our educational present as a normative claim, an ethical position, and a salvation-promising expression of faith. The paper conducts a careful, problematizing philosophical analysis of each of the individual assemblages “All” “Child” “Can” and “Learn” that have been brought together into this commonplace catchphrase, which I argue is entirely bankrupt. Instead, we need to begin with a robust, manifold notion of “education” and from that trace a trajectory across a vision of capability, potentiality and virtuality to better conceptualize human subjects and the just political collectivities of which they might be equitably made/become a part.

Author

• Noah W. Sobe, Loyola University Chicago