Tolerance as an Educational Encounter of Human Flourishing

• In Event: Aims and Ethics in Education

Abstract

This paper departs from a premise that tolerance is an enactment of human action in relation to the pursuit of human flourishing. As such, we examine whether educational encounters have the propensity for the exercise of responsible tolerance – that is, a tolerance constituted by dissent, agreeing to disagree, and the sovereignty of persuasive reasons. If educational encounters are amenable to responsible tolerance, how ought such encounters to be constituted? By drawing on the seminal ideas of Maxine Greene (1995), we show how tolerance can be exercised in the cultivation of encounters when imagination is exercised. Secondly, we explore how a tolerant form of democratic educational encounters can serve as a premise of rupturing, in relation to teaching and learning.

Authors

• Nuraan Davids, Stellenbosch University

• Yusef Waghid, University of Stellenbosch