Between the Pole and the Triple Jump: Metaphors of Imagination, Transgression, and Agencyin Pedagogical Thinking about the Human Being
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Abstract
In this article, I juxtapose Ryszard Maciej Łukaszewicz’s existing metaphor of the “person with a pole” with my own interpretive proposal, the figure of the Triple Jumper. The analysis is theoretical and interpretive, with a conceptual and comparative focus. I develop the reconstruction of the former figure into my own interpretation of anticipatory-transgressive agency, while constructing the latter as a metaphor of processual-responsive agency. The juxtaposition of the two figures leads to the concept of two grammars of agency: “beyond the boundary” and “towards consequences.” Their complementarity makes it possible to understand education as creating conditions in which a person can imagine going beyond what is given, undertake an attempt of their own, and take responsibility for its consequences. At the same time, I critically examine the risks inherent in sports metaphors: the cult of performance, the imperative of self-transgression, unequal conditions for agency, ableism, and the reduction of development to a logic of “higher and farther.”
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