Remembering Roger I. Simon: A Pedagogy of Public Possibility

Abstract

Roger SimonÕs scholarship bequeaths to theorists, teachers, and curators across Canada and beyond a theory of education that opens up responsibilities to past and present others. Writing the call for papers, we were struck by the deep and generative quality of SimonÕs legacy, which is mirrored in the diversity of papers included in this issue. The papers gathered for this special issue address many of the difficulties that he dared educators to hold in mind. What Simon opens are big questions for education in a time more often consoled by the promise of solutions, best practices, and evaluation. These are questions about the interpretive quality of knowledge, the meaning of responsibility, justice, and the role of pedagogy in the reparation of historical trauma. Indeed, Simon lived with questions as the ground of his pedagogy, and in their articulation, he leaves behind an absence that is brimming with potential to make social and historical knowledge matter.