Feeling Obligated: Teaching in Neoliberal Times

Feeling Obligated combines theoretical insights with the first-hand experiences of Canadian teachers to illustrate the impact of neoliberalism the installation of market norms into educational and social policies on teachers' professional integrity. Anne M. Phelan and Melanie D. Janzen illustrate the miserable conditions in which teachers teach, their efforts to navigate and withstand those circumstances, and their struggle to respond ethically to students, especially those already marginalized economically and socially. Exploring how educational policies attempt to recast teachers as skilled clinicians, the book revitalizes a conversation about teaching as a vocation wherein the challenge of obligation is of central concern. Haunted by what has already happened and threatened by what may yet occur, Feeling Obligated foregrounds the challenge of ethical obligation in teaching and makes a strong case for the revitalization of teaching as a vocation, involving commitment, resolve, and trust in a future yet to come.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: The "Miserable Conditions" of Teaching 1. Precarious Others: Valuing Singularity 2. Alienation and Exclusion: Appreciating Proximity 3. Shamed and Shaming: Honouring Students 4. Destitute and Dying: Preserving Dignity 5. Fears and Frustrations: Acknowledging Desire 6. Revitalizing Teaching as Vocation Index 

About the Author :
Anne M. Phelan is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and an honorary professor at the Education University of Hong Kong. Melanie D. Janzen is a professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Manitoba.

Review :
"Phelan and Janzen's book enables us to bear witness to teachers' sense of obligation in neoliberal times characterized by the narrowing of personhood in schools and social disinvestment by governments. Their textured analysis gives teaching the rich theoretical treatment the profession warrants. It is necessary reading for anyone invested in the ethical worlds of teachers."--Doris Santoro, Professor of Education, Bowdoin College "In this vital text, Phelan and Janzen powerfully critique neo-liberal social and education policies. Relatedly, they highlight their interviews with twenty-four teachers who, in response to these de-humanizing policies, variously grapple with 'feeling obligated.' The authors thus freshly theorize 'obligation' not as a burdened duty, but rather as an ethos, a call. This call concurrently re-invigorates Huebner's early conceptualization of 'teaching as vocation.' Never denying myriad questions and difficulties in enacting these concepts, Phelan and Janzen nevertheless challenge us to live our vocation as one that refuses unethically codified reductions of unpredictable and unmeasurable teachings and learnings."--Janet L. Miller, Professor Emerita of English Education, Teachers College, Columbia University "Feeling Obligated effectively connects the material and discursive conditions of life in schools to the psychic and social dimensions of a teaching life. This book will provoke conversations about the changing context of life in schools nationally and otherwise, purposes of education, teacher lives, ethical responsibility, teacher attrition, and so on. The scholarship is well-supported, drawing on a philosophical framework and exploring the psychic dimensions of teachers' lives and lived experiences through diverse lenses."--Avril Aitken, Professor in the School of Education, Bishop's University "There are few authors who could be as well-versed in the literature as Anne M. Phelan and Melanie D. Janzen are. Feeling Obligated brings to bear their deep knowledge of ethics in teaching and especially the work of John Caputo, whose theoretical perspective and insights inform the book as a whole. Eloquent and masterful, this book will be of interest to scholars and graduate students in the fields of teacher education, curriculum theory, and philosophy of education."--Teresa Strong-Wilson, Associate Professor in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, McGill University