The Real Reason Neo-liberalism Became Extinct: a curious educational history of 2020
FORUM - ISSN 0963-8253
Volume 62 Number 3 (2020)
The Real Reason Neo-liberalism Became Extinct: a curious educational history of 2020
JULIAN STERN pages 477-488
DOI: 10.15730/forum.2020.62.3.477
Abstract
There is a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon entitled 'The Real Reason Dinosaurs Became Extinct'. It shows three dinosaurs surreptitiously smoking cigarettes. Why would such a peripheral habit like burning some leaves cause an extinction? Like dinosaurs, neo-liberalism has had a bad press. There have been plenty of critiques of neo-liberalism, and plenty of models of post-neo-liberal societies. The author proposes that 2020 will be the year that - surprisingly - marks the extinction of neo-liberalism. The future is for everyone to make, but from the perspective of the future, looking back, it may seem obvious that 2020 marked not only the deaths of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people as a result of a new virus, but also - oddly, accidentally - the death of the whole system of neo-liberalism. This article therefore presents a very brief history of educational changes from a long-distant future, a history pivoting around the year 2020. It describes how curiosity killed the SAT, how it was miraculously rediscovered that people care, and how schools prioritised care and curiosity in community. It is possible for everyone to dream.
To cite this article
JULIAN STERN (2020) The Real Reason Neo-liberalism Became Extinct: a curious educational history of 2020, FORUM, 62(3), 477-488. https://doi.org/10.15730/forum.2020.62.3.477