Teaching as Creative Subversion: Education Encounter as an Antidote to Neoliberal Exploitation of the Educational Task

Abstract

The author offers a critique of how contemporary educational practice is oriented toward production and considers its implications for themes associated with transactional analysis theory and practice. Writing from within the context of a neoliberal culture, he explores how education is subject to the principles of commodification, which contaminates how education might serve the interests of students and the intention of educators. Following from this discussion, he turns to the idea of encounter as an alternative for imagining the educational task and considers the implications for the role of the teacher and the experience of the student. A number of questions are raised for educational transactional analysts, trainers, and trainees to consider in relation to arrangements for training, accreditation, and examination within the transactional analysis community.