The ‘cruel optimism’ of professional development

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ABSTRACT The starting point for this critical exploration of the inner logic of professional learning and development is an orientalist reading of The Great Wave, the iconic woodblock print by the Japanese artist Katushika Hokusai. How might ‘seeing double by ‘reading’ the woodblock from right to left as well as from left to right in the conventional Western manner help us to think about professional development? We draw upon the notion of ‘cruel optimism’ to navigate between the Scylla of accepted notions of professional learning and the Charybdis of personal responsibility for learning. ‘cruel optimism’ is the term used by the cultural theorist Lauren Berlant to describe the conditions under which particular achievements that initially promise to be meaningful turn out not to be so, but still hold us in their grip. Drawing also upon the historian Timothy Snyder’s masterful book On Freedom, this article is intended to stimulate discussion around policy and practice in the area of professional development; and to champion the hope, sovereignty and solidarity that develop in and through interpersonal relations over the cruel or facile optimism associated with impersonal models and frameworks.