The yes that needs saying: building a basis for learning without limits

FORUM - Print ISSN 1474-7685 - Online ISSN 2047-7171
Volume 68 Number 1 (2026)

The yes that needs saying: building a basis for learning without limits
Patrick Yarker pages 144‑152
DOI: 10.3898/forum.2026.68.1.12

Abstract

The discourse of ‘ability’ continues to mis-shape education in England and to inspire resistance among practitioners in the name of a more optimistic view of human educability. Such a view requires the development of anti-determinist pedagogy. Under the sign of ‘learning without limits’ that pedagogy is dependent on and responsive to principles of trust, co-agency and the inclusive ‘ethic of everybody’. It keeps faith with an understanding of the pupil as a person who learns, and retains a dynamic and open conception of the future pupil, the person educated. Anti-determinist pedagogy is made harder to disseminate generally because it refuses crystallisation into a ‘method’ and must endure the hostility which contemporary policy evinces towards whatever departs from teaching-as-delivery.

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To cite this article
Patrick Yarker (2026) The yes that needs saying: building a basis for learning without limits, FORUM, 68(1), 144-152 . https://doi.org/10.3898/forum.2026.68.1.12

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