The (im)possibilities of teaching-learning freedom

Abstract

Twenty-one years after a free and democratic South Africa was constituted, it seems as if South Africans are still in limbo. In this article, the author explores the essence of freedom as conceptualised by Arendt (1958, 1966, 1900, 2006) and the (im)possibilities of teaching-learning freedom towards continual new beginnings. Freedom and new beginnings are actualised when humans speak and act in equal difference. The possibilities of teaching-learning freedom rely on the acknowledgement of both the burden and the power of freedom and in unexpected acts of compassion and forgiveness in the teacher:child relationship (Becker 2013, 26). Using a phenomenological approach, the author explores qualitative data from the research project Human rights literacy: A quest for meaning (Roux 2012) to explore the (im)possibilities of teaching-learning freedom.