On Willful Learning: Pedagogies of Testimonio in Alicia Partnoy’s The Little School

Abstract: This article traces how Alicia Partnoy’s testimonio, The Little School : Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina (1986), mobilizes the metaphor of “bad student” not only to teach about the structural and personal violence of Argentina’s last dictatorship, but also make space for readers to grapple with how to be resistant learners within instructional frameworks of classroom, public, and cultural pedagogies that appropriate human rights discourse for violence. The article employs Sara Ahmed’s ontology of “willfulness” and Paulo Freire’s concept of “banking pedagogy” to demonstrate how Partnoy invites her readers to map the literary figure of the “willful learner” onto themselves in relation to the disruptive pedagogical exigency of her testimonio. The article proposes “willful learning” as an essential strategy of testimonio for authors and readers alike. Partnoy’s “bad student” offers a timely lesson as we work to protect “willful learning” operating within institutions whose tactics for disciplining difference are coded as being in the service of public welfare.