Talking to attendees at an education conference about the importance of Education may be characterised as ‘preaching to the converted’ or ‘singing to the choir’, as all of us who attend such events are, ipso facto, convinced of and committed to the value and importance of Education. However, outside of our Education world there appears to be a growing number of high-profile, high-powered world leaders and celebrities who are not only ignorant of basic facts and figures regarding the world around them, but who appear to be proud of their ignorance. That can be seen as an attack on the belief that being an Educated Person as an inherently good thing to be.
Linguistically, a reflection of this blissful/boastful ignorance is the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 2016 Word-of-the-Year: ‘Post-Truth’. According to the OED site: “Post-truth has gone from being a peripheral term to being a mainstay in political commentary, now often being used by major publications without the need for clarification or definition in their headlines”. If Truth is now ‘optional’, what does this mean for Education, and for us as educators? In terms of language, a related phrase is ‘Alternative Facts’, used in January 2017, by the US Counselor to the then-new President of the USA. Again, if Facts are now also ‘optional’ what does this mean for education and educators? In this keynote presentation we will look at some possible answers to these questions.
