The Pedagogy of Objects ― Politics, Aesthetics, and the Project of Learning

The Pedagogy of Objects attempts to reorient our thinking about education toward a world made up of autonomous objects. This innovative book puts forth the argument that through discussing the way that objects teach we can reconfigure some of the most pressing political problems confronting education today including increasing forms of institutionality; the often debilitating relationships that exist between teachers and students; the obsessive compulsion to equate education with verification; and the manufacture of self-management inherent to curriculum design, among other things.

Through exploring alternative educational arrangements focused on both material and conceptual objects, from the experiments of early progressive educators like Celestin Freinet to alternative learning communities at the heart of contemporary autonomous politics, this book establishes the conditions in which objects play a pedagogical role beyond habitual conceptions of education. By turning our attention away from ideology and toward organization, aesthetics, and object relations The Pedagogy of Objects fundamentally changes the way that we conceive of the connections between objects and learning.

Matthew Carlin is an assistant professor in the Social Science and Cultural Studies Department at Pratt Institute, US.

Nathan Clendenin is a PhD candidate and Instructor at Teachers College, Columbia
University, US.