Abstract Can an artificial intelligence (AI) system perform the emotional labor of teaching, or can it only reproduce emotional labor's outward signs? In this article, I argue that the latter does not by itself justify the former. Emotional labor in education includes surface acting, but it still presupposes an agent capable of emotion, self‐regulation, and responsibility within a pedagogical relation. Its educational value can also depend on students' reasonable perception that care is not wholly fabricated. I develop this claim through selected debates about machinic emotion from 1950 to 1996. Ziff, Smart, and Putnam dispute whether feeling requires biological life or can be attributed through organized behavior; Weiss, Scriven, and Danto test whether relation, honesty, and language can evidence machine emotion; and Dyer, Ortony et al., and Arbib contest whether computational appraisal can capture embodied affect. These debates do not supply a historical test that contemporary systems must pass. They expose three still‐relevant justificatory questions about ontology, evidence, and embodiment that divide educational critics and technologists. This article uses those questions to distinguish computational representations and simulations of emotion from warranted claims that a system has emotion and performs emotional labor. The result is a shared vocabulary for evaluating affective AI in education and for identifying which forms of pedagogical care cannot simply be inferred from emotionally convincing output.
Abstract This article develops an Anishinaabe theory of moral education. It examines how Anishinaabe kikendassowin (“Anishinaabe teachings”) serve as a curriculum for forming learnings into right relationship and reciprocal consent with more‐than‐human persons. Focusing on manitokewin (“invoking manitoog”), the manitoog (“spirits; more‐than‐human persons”) most commonly encountered are described as pawakanag (“dream images”). The central question is: What does it mean to educate for right relationship and consent in Anishinaabe thought? I develop a hybrid Anishinaabe ethno‐metaphysics of manito (“spirit; other‐than‐human person”). I argue that land, animals, and other beings are literal persons within a context of stewardship, and that moral and ecological obligations arise from this framework. Anishinaabe kikendassowin teaches that learners must obtain the manito's consent through pawadjigewin (“dreaming”) and by observing the Seven Grandfather Teachings in the Great Law, which forms the curriculum of Anishinaabe moral education. I show how law and transgression organize the Anishinaabe world, where causality is primarily personal and relational. Finally, I examine how performative dreaming enables educational transformation and propose that pawadjigewin, when practiced correctly, models the original act of creation by Kije‐Manito (“Spirit of Mercy”). This account offers a method for relational formation and challenges educational theories that treat land and other animate beings as resources rather than as persons.
Abstract In recent years, Western philosophical inquiry has expanded beyond its traditional focus on humans, exploring questions about other‐ and more‐than human beings. This movement addresses a diverse array of topics, considering animals and elements of the natural world as well as growing attention to artificial intelligence. The Philosophy of Education Society (PES) and Educational Theory issued a joint call for paper proposals for the 2025 PES Pre‐Conference on the theme of “Philosophy of Education Beyond the Human.” This essay introduces the collection of articles developed through that call. The resulting special issue includes four articles that explore pedagogical relationships between humans and nonhuman or more‐than‐human entities (Hamilton, Krabbe, Lussier, and Pedersen), with two focused specifically on technology (Anderson and Khan). Together this set of articles offers insights into philosophy of education beyond the human that engage with a rich array of traditions of thought in philosophy and educational theory.
Abstract This article discusses the educational value of habits and familiarity in the works of Jane Addams and John Dewey. Through this analysis, I aim to shed new light on the intellectual relationship between the two philosophers, demonstrating the enduring relevance of their legacy. Starting from a general description of habits and familiarity in Dewey and Addams, the discourse moves to defamiliarization and dishabituation as noteworthy elements in their philosophies of education. Finally, it shows how the twist of familiarity and habits is at work at both Hull House and the Laboratory School.
Abstract Universities today face accelerating instability, shaped by audit cultures, performance metrics, and constant pressures for adaptation. Leadership is often framed in managerial terms of strategic control and technical problem‐solving, yet such models risk obscuring the ethical responsibility that sustains institutional life. This article develops an alternative account of leadership as a hermeneutic‐ethical practice. Drawing on Paul Ricoeur's conception of narrative identity, I argue that leaders are responsible for holding together the idem of institutional continuity with the ipse of transformation and promise. Leadership is not exhausted by decision‐making but entails the narrative labor of keeping faith with an institution's story while opening it to new possibilities. Hannah Arendt's reflections on responsibility and judgment further deepen this account by highlighting the plurality and contestability of institutional narratives. The article concludes by proposing leadership as a practice of narrative responsibility: sustaining coherence while remaining open to critique, plurality, and renewal.
