Exercising as a typical educational practice

1. Exercising as a typical educational practice Reading Bollnow’s analysis of exercise through an Agambenianlense JorisVlieghe Laboratory for Education & Society (University of Leuven) ECER, Berlin, September the 16th 2011

2. Exercising as a typicaleducationalpractice • In thiscontribution I tryto show howanAgambenianperspectivemight help toanalyze concrete educationalpractices • Focus: exercising (oefenen, Üben) • Exercising is morethana mere pedagogical instrument for memorizing things or an activity that has merely a supporting role in view of the things that really matter in education.

3. Exercising as a typicaleducationalpractice • important to do because exercising is normally dealt with in the opposite direction • Exceptions: • Bollnow, Otto Friedrich (1978). Vom Geist des Übens. Eine Rückbesinnung auf elementare didaktische Erfahrungen • Brinkmann, M. (2008). Üben - elementares Lernen. Überlegungen zur Phänomenologie, Theorie und Didaktik der pädagogischen Übung.

4. Twoprliminaryremarks • No Agamben-based, normative & generaltheory of education in view of whichexercisingappears as the right thingto do • Exercising = properly ‘pedagogical form’: itmattersthatithappensat schooland is an important practicetounderstandwhatmakes school tobe school.

5. Main question: what is exercising and what makes it a typically educational activity? Bollnow:

6. ProblemwithBollnow’s view(exercising ≈ continuousimprovement/perfection) • Only relevant fordistinguishingplainlearning (livre= book) fromexercising complex culturalactivities (athletics, music, archery) • The distinction he makes doesn’t help to understand typical cases of school learning (such as mastering the alphabet) • What is really at stake in Bollnow’s definition is that exercising is ultimately self-exercise

7. An Agambian view on learning vs. exercise • Essence of learning = addingsomething to the selfoneformerlydidn’tpossess(didn’tknow, wasn’table to do) • Essence of exercising ≠ continuousimprovement/perfection = relating to something we already (even if only partially) possess • That is perhapswhyexercising is typically a school activity: itrequires a certain time andspacethatallowsforrepetitionin a collectiveandstronglyembodied (andactive) way.

8. An Agambian view on learning vs. exercise • Experiencingwhatit means that we can say ‘I can’ ≠ actualizationfomerepossibility: I can do this or that = experiencingutmostimpossibility • ‘I’ in the expression ‘I can’ ≠ foundational subject thatrealizesitselfthrough concrete things The onlythingthatremains is ananonymous, thoughaffirmativeexperience of possibility (‘Potentiality’)

9. An Agambian view on learning vs. exercise • Exercising = taking up something we alreadypossessed in such a way (viz.: repetitively, collectively, corporeally) thatany private interest getssuspended • Preciselyhere a real transformation of individualandcollective life becomespossible. • To deal withnumbers, the alphabetor physical movements in this way is typicallysomethingthathappensinside the walls of educationalinstitutions. • Therefore: exercising as educationalactivity

10. An Agambian view on learning vs. exercise • Learning = Shiftingfromnicht-Können(lack) to Können(self-affirmation) • Exercising= ShiftingfromKönnen(possession) toNichtkönnen(dispossession of the self) • Remark : is this kind of educationally relevant exercisestillpossible in online-learning ?