Critique of labourfication and solutionism in (teacher) education – a defence of teacher educators’ poetic freedom to act as public intellectuals

This psychoanalytically and philosophically informed article sets its
focus on one of the emerging challenges that comes with the
notion of labourfication and solutionism when it frames teacher
education. Teacher educators’ agency, including their poetic free-
dom to think critically and act as public intellectuals, has become
limited by neoliberal labour policy and by the increased instrumen-
talization of and solutionism linked to teacher educational tasks.
Among the main tasks for teacher educators is socialising student
teachers to “fit in” and to “be interpellated” by the socio-symbolic
neoliberal reality and to provide them with functional, useful skills
and qualifications (in terms of work readiness) that can make them
desirable objects for and within this reality. At the same time, the
educationalization of socio-economic and moral problems
demands that teacher education solve problems that can prevent
“failure” with the labour-oriented task(s) they are given. This article
argues that teacher educators must reclaim agency by refusing to
act in ways that are targeted to satisfy the Big neoliberal Other’s
desire for labourfication and solutionism in teacher education.