The Moment of Study in Learning: A Phenomenological Resistance to Neoliberalism's Learning Discourse

• In Event: 47.098 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Eight - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 47.098-3 - Conceptions of Learning

Abstract

The paper’s purpose is to re-envision the phenomenon of learning so that the phenomenon itself can provide stiff resistance to neoliberalism’ coopting of that term. Neoliberalism’s learning discourse is resisted through a phenomenological description of a photograph of a boy’s embodied interaction with a toy train. In doing so, the paper engages Tyson Lewis’s move away from the language of learning and his move towards the language of study. The boy’s actions, interpreted as learning fractions, is described as learning conditioned by a moment of study. The moment of study is described from the perspective of enactivism as structured in the elements of embodied gesture, temporal duration, and improvisation play.

Author

• Clarence Joldersma, Calvin College