Educationally Connecting to the Past in Teaching In Philosophical Perspectives on Teacher Training

Introduction: The Presence of the Past

The past is always present in teaching. On the one hand, the presence of past generations’ knowledge, traditions, norms, and practices is what gives teachers and educators something to teach. On the other hand, the presence of the past is also what sometimes turns teaching into mere repetition, foreclosing the possibilities for something new to appear.

Contemporary pedagogical practices can, in broad brushstrokes, be seen as following two main trends in regard to the past: one is to focus on the preservation of “a lost past” often motivated by a nostalgic return to “the (good) old days” (conservative pedagogies), and the other is to focus on renewal and change often motivated by the idea that injustices of the past ought not to be reproduced in the future (progressive and radical pedagogies). In todays’ politically and socially turbulent times, many Western countries are seeing a resurgence of both these trends, and an increasing number of schools...