Meirieu, P. (2022). What the school can still do for democracy: Two or three things I (maybe) know about education and pedagogy.

Abstract

In this book, Philippe Meirieu dedicates himself to an exercise akin to that of the classic confessions, so in vogue among thinkers from earlier centuries. It is, of course, an eminently pedagogical confession. And yet it would not be an exaggeration to say that the text also has much of the style of memoirs, exercises in writing dedicated to setting out in black and white a synthesis, a journey’s end, even an intellectualtestament. Through simple, clear, and deft writing, which uses his own experience as a student, pedagogue, and educator as a narrative thread, Meirieu’s book drops a plumb line onto the surface of the world and the time in which we live with the aim of, on the one hand, diagnosing their hegemonic rationales and, on the other, exploring the possibilities and limits of pedagogical thought and educational practice. Both of these intentions can be seen in the long but declarative title of the book, What the school can still do for democracy, but also in the intentionally modest subtitle, Two or three things I (maybe) know about education and pedagogy. In this case there is no possible maybe; Meirieu possesses, and supports with conviction and good arguments, a pedagogical and political knowledge accumulated through extensive practice.