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