Critique of labourfication and solutionism in (teacher) education - a defence of teacher educators' poetic freedom to act as public intellectuals

This psychoanalytically and philosophically informed article sets its focus on one of the emerging challenges that comes with the notion of labourfication and solutionism when it frames teacher education. Teacher educators' agency, including their poetic freedom to think critically and act as public intellectuals, has become limited by neoliberal labour policy and by the increased instrumentalization of and solutionism linked to teacher educational tasks. Among the main tasks for teacher educators is socialising student teachers to "fit in" and to "be interpellated" by the socio-symbolic neoliberal reality and to provide them with functional, useful skills and qualifications (in terms of work readiness) that can make them desirable objects for and within this reality. At the same time, the educationalization of socio-economic and moral problems demands that teacher education solve problems that can prevent "failure" with the labour-oriented task(s) they are given. This article argues that teacher educators must reclaim agency by refusing to act in ways that are targeted to satisfy the Big neoliberal Other's desire for labourfication and solutionism in teacher education.