In 2008, I developed a theoretical framework aimed at affording new ways to understand and talk about the pedagogical relation between a teacher and her student (Jons 2008). In the spirit of Deleuze & Guattari’s (1994) ideas that philosophy is a matter of discerning new aspects in familiar phenomena by means of conceptual acrobatics, I wanted to explore the possibility to perceive the teacher-student relation in a new light. Taking a departure in Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, the framework came to be characterised by an ontological dialogicity with ethical overtones. The framework, named “Calling & Responding”, enabled an understanding of the teacher-student-relationship as including dimensions of calling, paying heed, and responsible responding. 

In extending the philosophical exploration, the framework of Calling & Responding was later applied to the relation between the student and the content (Jons 2014), enabling learning to be understood as a matter of the student and the content being involved in a dialogue where the student pays heed to the subject calling her, and, in accomplishing assignments, responding responsibly to that calling.

I am now working on applying the framework of Calling & Responding to the relation between the teacher and her subject. While educational scholars acknowledges love and passion to be involved in their relation to the subject (Arendt 1994; Palmer 2007; Kreber; 2009; Aldridge 2019), the models conceptualising the teacher-subject-relation has been criticised for conveying a too rational and static notion of the relation (Gudmundsdottir 1990; Worden 2015). My aim therefore is to explore the affordances of conceptualising the phenomenon of preparing a subject for teaching as a matter of the teacher paying heed to the subject and responding to it responsibly. 

The presentation will give detailed accounts of each of these pedagogical relationships when conceptualised inside the framework of Calling & Responding