From Higher Education for the Future
If we take a teacher to be an artist, perhaps it becomes a compulsive
necessity to draw an equivalent between teachers and tragedies, following the
maverick existential philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1956, p. 132). Just like
an embodied experience of tragedy triggers immense existential–aesthetic energy
in an artist, we could expect the teachers to let their practices be inspired,
instigated and invigorated in the time of pandemic.
This is however not to ignore that higher
education has insurmountable structural anomalies (Altbach, 1977; Beteille,
2010; Patel, 2004; Tilak 2020). Manifold apriori reflections on the structural
anomalies aid in understanding the old normal that impeded pedagogy. The
perpetuity of the old (normal), structural anomalies, continue to haunt the
online education too. Just like it was deemed necessary before pandemic, it is
duly observed that pandemic pedagogy needs ‘mavericks’, the dissenter
intellectuals as teachers who break free from the disciplinary boundaries and
propagate independent thinking among students.
Pedagogic practices, however, is not an idea of
an unstinted romance in our times. We ought to be also accepting the existence
of this pedagogic enterprise as an interstitial reality with uncertainty of
consequences. In agreement with a notion of ‘pedagogy of hope’ (Freire, 1994),
however, this essay shall seek to place it in the context of academic
Brahmanism.
Pandemic pedagogy solicits an intellectually and
emotionally exciting camaraderie of students and teachers in the wake of mixed
liminality, that is, intellectual freedom amid the rigid structural logic. The
basic import of this essay also enables to debate about a pedagogic
predisposition, requisite in ‘old normal’ as well as in the so-called ‘new
normal’. Rather than just a technological question, the online education is
more of a pedagogic question, and more precisely, an opportunity. With its own
ups and down, it entails a rare occasion for the mavericks, teachers and
students, to try out the ways that were structurally not available.
Pandemic pedagogy is a new concept that focuses on the global spread of disease to examine its impact. I prefer to check this spouting auckland and get more new ways for construction. If we are to understand the principles of this idea and take it closer to reality, we need to engage in self-reflective rumination on teaching and learning practices, employing an interdisciplinary perspective which draws on various disciplines and methodologies.
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