The Disobedient Game

Date
2020
Authors
Isom, Philippa
Supervisor
Gibbons, Andrew
Item type
Dissertation
Degree name
Master of Educational Leadership
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Publisher
Auckland University of Technology
Abstract

This dissertation is an exploration into the future of school. In order to explore the future of school it engages with the concepts of living life with infinite game values (Harré, 2017) and productive disobedience in education (Ings, 2018). The intersections of these two concepts form the basis of a conversation about the disruption of the accepted ways of living together to engage in a different way of living well together. The work is situated in the current era of globalisation and accelerated global environmental change where, it will be suggested, schools are a site for the reproduction of the Western industrial hegemonic which is stretching planetary boundaries such as CO2 production, water usage and land system change, possibly beyond repair. Through engaging with the methods of Futures Studies, considering the complex issue of globalisation and the shift from the Holocene to the Anthropocene epoch as well as the history of schools in New Zealand, the current field of play on which New Zealand schools are situated is explored. It then aims to look forward to possible futures to offer a vision of future schools that are inclusive and based in the win/win paradigm of infinite game play in contrast to the production of winners and losers. Using Niki Harré’s suggested metaphor of lives played as a finite game of test cricket or an infinite game of beach cricket, notions of freedom and emancipation are explored with further reference to the work of Gert Biesta, Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière. This leads to an examination of how infinite game values may be enacted in life and then specifically in schools. Finally, through the use of fictional narrative, a future vision for schools in New Zealand is proposed using the principles of Harré's The Infinite Game and understandings from Ings’ Disobedient Teaching.

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Keywords
Education , Infinite Game , Futures Studies , School , Disruption , Philosophy
Source
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