Thinking, Childhood, and Time: Contemporary Perspectives on the Politics of Education is an interdisciplinary exploration of the notion of childhood and its place in a philosophical education. Contributors consider childrens experiences of time, space, embodiment, and thinking. By acknowledging Hannah Arendts notion that every child brings a new beginning into the world, they address the question of how educators can be more responsive to the Otherness that childhood offers, while assuming that most educational models follow either a chronological model of child development or view children as human beings that are lacking.

The contributors explore childhood as a philosophical concept in children, adults, and even beyond human beingsChildhood as a (forgotten) dimension of the world. Contributors also argue that a pedagogy that does not aim for an exodus of childhood, but rather responds to the arrival of a new human being responsibly (dialogically), fosters a deeper appreciation of the newness that children bring in order to sensitize us for our own Childhood as adults as well and allow us to welcome other forms of childhood in the world. As a whole, this book argues that the experience of natality, such as the beginning of life, is not chronologically determined, but rather can occur more than once in a human life and beyond. Scholars of philosophy, education, psychology, and childhood studies will find this book particularly useful.

Walter Omar Kohan is professorin the Childhood Studies Department at the State University of Rio de Janeiro.

Barbara Weber is associate professor and program chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at the University of British Columbia.

Acknowledgments

Part One: Phenomenological Explorations of Time, Thinking and Embodiment

Chapter 1: Childhood and the Genesis of Time: A Phenomenological Approach

James Mensch

Chapter 2: Child and Time: A Phenomenological Journey into the Human Conditions of Education

Barbara Weber

Chapter 3: Think Like a Girl: Scouts Time and Experience inTo Kill a Mockingbird

Peter Costello

Chapter 4: Listening,Phronein and the First Principle of Happiness

Pablo Muruzábal Lamberti

Chapter 5: Thinking and the Play of Being

Michael A. Bonnett

Chapter 6: Philosophia Ludens for Children: A Proposal to Play and to Think

Annalisa Caputo

Part Two: Decolonial and Postructuralist Perspectives on the Politics of Education

Chapter 7: Becoming Child: Wild Being and the Post-Human

David Kennedy

Chapter 8: Paulo Freire and the Childhood of a Philosophical and Educational Life

Walter Omar Kohan

Chapter 9: Democratic Childs Play: Natality, Responsible Education, and Decolonial Praxis

Toby Rollo

Chapter 10: Posthuman Child: De(con)structing Western Notions of Child Agency

Karin Murris

Chapter 11: Relational Openings for The Otherwise: Thinking Community as What is Not

Cristina Delgado Vintimilla

Chapter 12: Life as a Pedagogical Concept

Iris Berger and Adrienne Argent

Chapter 13: Natures, Cultures and Education: Anarcheologies of the Present

Juliana Merçon

About the Contributors