Pedagogy of Resonance for an Education in the Anthropocene

This chapter proposes to question the foundations and practices of a pedagogy of resonance in view of the challenges of an education in the Anthropocene. At the starting point, we have taken note of Hartmut Rosa’s sociology, which is in line with the Frankfurt School and a critique of modernity, starting from the concept of acceleration. Yet it is the great acceleration that characterises the Anthropocene. The great acceleration is one of the key concepts with which Rosa articulates the concept of resonance, to the point of launching this provocative proposition: “let’s accelerate resonance”. This new field of investigation focuses on resonance, and we continue it with the concept of conviviality (central notion of the convivialist current). With each of these concepts, this chapter continues to put to work the pedagogical functions of utopia, critique and resistance for an education in the Anthropocene. Analyses are conducted on the subject of a living reciprocal relationship with the world and a theory of learning that is not only envisaged as pure appropriation of the object to be known or acquisition of skills, but first as encounter, relationship between self and the world, reciprocal relationship that has the effect of transforming the subject. Faced with the challenges of a pedagogy in the Anthropocene, research is conducted from Rosa’s sociology to develop a thought of education under the background of transformative assimilation. Resonance relationships are explored as processes of self and world transformation, complex and uncertain. It is emphasised how Rosa shows how school can be a space of resonance within the teacher/student/material triangle, vibrating the axes of resonance, so that a transformative assimilation occurs. By cultivating a transformative experience of the subject who lets himself be touched by the world, resonance encourages the use of scientific methods that develop a more sensitive approach to the physical and social environment, as well as a political reflection as encouraged by what we know today about the Anthropocene. The functions of critique, resistance and utopia from the concepts of resonance and conviviality are analysed as potentially constitutive of a citizen education adapted to the Anthropocene. The chapter is composed of three parts: (1) Critique of modernity, humanism and resonant education; (2) Training by competence or self-transformation through resonance; (3) Courage and pedagogical functions of resonance and conviviality.