Moving Out of the Cellar - A New (?) Existentialism for a Future Without Teachers

Oct 15, 2026

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Analyzes the dehumanization of education driven by accountability-driven schooling that prioritizes test-score targets, routinized technical curricula, and hyper-standardized quantitative evaluation. Argues that such trends promote machine-like teaching and weaken the relational, embodied, humanizing work of education, generating professional anxiety among teachers. Cites rising teacher attrition and survey results on disheartenment, and frames the issue as an existentialist challenge requiring philosophical foundations of education that investigate schooling’s humanizing features.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Foundations of Education: Beyond Instrumentality and Intrinsic Value

Moving Out of the Cellar: A New (?) Existentialism for a Future Without Teachers Kip Kline, Lewis University Kathleen Knight Abowitz, Miami University Introduction Twelve years ago, Bill Joy—computer scientist and co-founder of Sun Microsystems—declared that “the future” doesn’t need human beings.1 If he is right, the future certainly doesn’t need teachers. Or at the very least, if we are not completely given to Joy’s provocative assertion, we still must confront the possibility of a future in which the human element in teaching is on the wane. In fact, many teachers experience this not as a possible future, but as part of the felt experience of their current situation. The “new breed of accountability-driven schools is more interested in reaching some number at the end of the school year” than in actually constructing places where teachers can create meaningful learning experiences for students.2 Educational systems increasingly reward the most machine-like teachers; those who focus fully on achieving the highest test scores and the most efficient use of instructional time toward that end. Curricula are increasingly evaluated and adopted based on their technical relevance alone and the delivery of this technical curriculum itself has become highly routinized and technicized through a process that twenty-five years ago critical scholars called the “deskilling of teachers” and which appears to only have intensified.3 These trends seem to point to a future of machine-like schooling, perhaps without as many physical school buildings in it, and in which the relational, embodied work of education further fades into the background. This is a future lacking humanizing educational experiences for teachers and for students, an educative process increasingly treated as thoroughly technical, its success exclusively evaluated by hyper-standardized, quantitative measures. This dehumanization has particular forms and effects, including anxiety and angst. As one measure of the affect this has on teachers, teacher attrition rates have risen 50% in the United State in the last fifteen years.4 A 2009 survey of teachers revealed 40% to be “disheartened” by contemporary classroom working conditions.5 These statistics indicate a growing sense of angst among the U.S. teaching corps. Teachers of course are not alone in their angst; all of us in the 1. Bill Joy, “The Future Doesn’t Need Us,” Wired 8, no. 4 (April, 2000). [http://www.wired.com/ wired/archive/](http://www.wired.com/ wired/archive/) 8.04/joy.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set. 2. Alan C. Jones,“Mr. Obama: Most Schools Aren’t Like your Daughters’ School,” Education Week, January 22, 2013. [http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/23/18jones_ep.h32.html?tkn=SPUFjU7p6XYMUm0YENIhObgsHjsesHK7I%2BJ9](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/23/18jones_ep.h32.html?tkn=SPUFjU7p6XYMUm0YENIhObgsHjsesHK7I%2BJ9)[ ](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/01/23/18jones_ep.h32.html?tkn=SPUFjU7p6XYMUm0YENIhObgsHjsesHK7I%2BJ9)[&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1.](&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1.) 3. e.g., Dennis Carlson,“Teachers as Political Actors: From Reproductive Theory to the Crisis of Schooling,” Harvard Educational Review, 57, no. 3 (1987): 283-308. 4. Erik Kain,“High Teacher Turnover Rates are a Big Problem for America’s Public Schools,” Forbes, March 8, 2011. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/03/08/ high-teacher-turnover-rates-are-a-big-problem-for-americas-public-schools/](http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/03/08/ high-teacher-turnover-rates-are-a-big-problem-for-americas-public-schools/) . 5. Andrew L. Yarrow, “State of Mind,” Education Week, October 21, 2009. [http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/)[ ](http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/)10/21/08publicagenda_ep.h29.html. United States currently live in anxiety-producing times.6 Educators, however, feel a form of professional anxiety that is unique and, these days, perhaps a more acute f

FAQs

What core trend does the text criticize in contemporary schools?

It criticizes accountability-driven schooling focused on end-of-year numbers, test scores, and efficient use of instructional time rather than constructing meaningful learning experiences.

How does the text explain the effects on teachers?

It links dehumanization to professional anxiety, citing rising teacher attrition rates and survey findings that many teachers feel disheartened by classroom conditions.

What response does the text call for from educational philosophy?

It argues that educators and educational foundationalists—especially philosophers of education—should provide a productive existentialist response by investigating education’s humanizing features through the philosophy of education.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by jayni