Disruptive Pedagogies for Teacher Education: The Power of Potentia in Posthuman Times

Abstract

This chapter recounts the experience of tutors and students at a further education college in the north of England, who, over the course of an academic year, viewed their teacher training curriculum through a posthuman lens in order to reimagine the world of teaching and learning for the twenty-first century and beyond. Becoming a teacher in England today is challenging, as educators at all levels suffer the fall-out of far-reaching funding cuts, increased managerialism, and a shifting educational paradigm that privileges instrumental approaches to teaching. Concepts of posthumanism and their practical application in a teacher training environment are explored, drawing on the thinking of Barad, Braidotti, Deleuze and Guattari and Haraway amongst others. The chapter describes how students and tutors put these concepts to work in order to reimagine their teaching journeys, through art, poetry, ‘disruptive’ pedagogies and rhizomatic emergences, taking cross-disciplinary approaches to traditional academic teacher education pathways. The ethical and practical challenges of taking a ‘posthuman turn’ when training new educators are considered. In a spirit of affirmation, recommendations are then made that draw on ‘potentia’ as a form of power that can move trainee teachers from a place of pain to one of action and transformation.